‘There is nothing you can do to save your friends or this Hittite Prince. They are already dead. But you can make another choice for yourself.’
‘I would never choose my own survival at the price of my friends’ death,’ I replied.
‘Of course you could. I might offer you a new life. If you joined me here, you would enjoy the best fruits of this world, and the next. By my side.’
What could I say?
‘I am honoured by your offer…’ I said. ‘Give me time to consider it…’
‘You will not refuse me,’ she said quietly. ‘You must choose. Death, or life.’
Our eyes held each other’s gaze again, and this time I did not look away.
She clapped her hands, and a servant hurried in, carrying a beautifully inlaid wooden box, a silver dish on long, elegant legs, and a candle. She opened the lid, and took out a small piece of something dark brown, and sticky. She placed it in the dish, and let it heat and melt over the candle flame. Then, as it began to fume, she earnestly chanted a short prayer.
‘To which God are you praying?’ I said.
‘To no god! To my Goddess. The Queen of the Underworld. To Ishtar.’
‘She is unknown to me,’ I said, recalling how the Babylonian Queen in Hatti had identified the symbol of the black star.
‘She is the Goddess of Love and War. She has wings of many colours. Her feet are the talons of an eagle. She stands on the back of two lions. In her hands she holds the rod and ring of justice. She is all-powerful.’
Then she offered me her bejewelled hand.
‘Come,’ she said simply. ‘It is time to meet her. It is time to dream.’
31
The time contained in a drop of water is infinite. As I stared at it, gathering itself into itself in its own time, I knew a thousand years was held in the swelling beauty of the water drop. A golden tranquillity flowed through me, and it was the warmth and light of Ra himself. My hands and feet were heavy with calm, and very far away. I could, if I desired, raise my right hand and gather the stars like jewels from the sky, or carefully pick the moon from the vast dark and hold it in my palm, delicate as a moth. The walls of the chamber swam like clear water. The flames of the lamps moved freely, like fish, through the passing of time, through the insubstantial reigns of gods and kings. That which was near was also far away. Everything was illuminated with beauty and a calm glory. I was dreaming, but more awake than I had ever felt in my life, which all now seemed a dream; the pains and fears of the past diminished to tiny figures on reed boats set to sail on the sunlit ocean of the Otherworld. I was part of the endless sparkling glory of its waters. I moved forward, sweeping the lights with my hands, holding the glitter up to my face, going deeper and deeper into the endless delight of the light…
Very slowly I rose up from the depths of the dream. I felt I had been with the Gods. But I felt inexplicably saddened to awake to the world, to the chamber, to the couch. Inanna was beside me, still lost in her own dream. Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes flickered under her eyelids. We were both naked. Her skin was warm and soft against mine. Sudden fear gripped my heart in its fist. I moved quickly away from her and stood in the dark, the chamber spinning around me. What had happened? What had I done? I struggled to remember the events of the night. I recalled the invitation to partake of the drug; then wanting to vomit; but next being overcome by a slow, golden sensation of tranquillity and bliss. And then I remembered Inanna chanting to her Goddess, and stripping naked before me-and I had been dazzled.
My mouth was dry. Panic danced through my body. I tried to breathe slowly, but Inanna stirred, and rolled over, stretching like a cat. And she saw me, and smiled, and reached for me. And then I knew exactly what I had done.
Before she could see the look on my face, I bent to the washbowl, and cupped water in my shaking hands, and splashed the water on my face. I had to bring myself back. I had experienced a kind of bliss, but now all I felt was torment. I had to get away from her. I moved silently to the doors, but when I opened them, two guards stood facing me, and waved me back into the chamber. Inanna beckoned to me.
We rode out together on a pair of magnificent horses into the fresh morning. Her henchmen watched me antagonistically, and then turned their backs, muttering quietly to each other, as if they knew something I didn’t.
The sun blazed in the clear sky, adding a fine warmth to the cool, clear air. From time to time, Inanna glanced at me; we had been intimate, and yet now we were as distant as strangers. I felt like a stranger to myself; the world of my real life seemed far away. My friends were prisoners of this woman, and here I was, riding out with her as if I were her lover. The golden bliss of the drug still lingered inside me, but I felt as if I were trapped in a nightmare of betrayal from which I could not wake.
We rode along a busy way, passing between the fields that climbed the slopes of the wide valley. Above us, the grey and silver mountains glinted in the powerful morning light. The sloping opium fields were busy, full of men and teenage boys, their heads shrouded in cloths to protect them from the sun, working backwards through the crops, scraping the night’s sticky harvest from the seed-heads into containers hanging from their necks, while younger children were set to weeding among the plants. Some workers were seeding newly ploughed fields. In others, the poppy plants bore new white flowers.
‘Each crop comes to fruit in four moons. The Goddess rewards us,’ Inanna said proudly.
She showed me a seed-head ready for scoring; it was dark green, and the crown, which had held the petals, was standing straight out. She produced the three-bladed knife with which she had cut Zannanza, and deftly pulled it upwards across the skin of the seed-head. It made only the shallowest of incisions, but instantly white tears of pungent sap appeared.
‘The tears of joy,’ she said.
‘You need many hundreds of labourers to harvest the crop…’
‘Everyone here belongs to me. This is my kingdom.’
‘And they have no idea that each of them is harvesting something that could earn them fortunes beyond their dreams, in the cities of Egypt, and no doubt elsewhere?’ I said.
She turned to me.
‘And what would they do with such knowledge, or with such fortunes? I give them all they need, all they desire.’
‘Surely some of your men know the value of the opium?’ I suggested.
‘They get their share. And besides, they would not dare to confront me,’ she replied.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I would kill them,’ she said, and spurred her horse forward.
We rode on until we reached a small collection of simple shacks surrounding an open area, and a mud-brick storehouse. Farmers had come to exchange their harvest of opium sap for food and grain, some lengths of cloth, and primitive tools. Poppy seeds were raked out in large areas in the sun to dry. Big cauldrons were boiling over open fires. Inside these, I saw to my astonishment, the opium sap was being cooked. I watched as a cauldron was skimmed of leaves and debris, and then the liquid strained through a cloth. What emerged was a steaming brown broth, which was heated again, until it thickened into a dark-brown paste that was shaped into bricks. She offered me one to hold; I turned it over in my hands, fascinated. It was sticky, but dry and relatively light-and above all, far more easily transportable than its liquid form, which required heavy clay jars.
We went into the storehouse. Shelf upon shelf held hundreds of blocks of the brown resin. At last I knew how the Theban gang had been able to supply such quantities of opium, and transport it across such distances.