Enkidu chewed mechanically, absorbed by her growing intensity. She was beginning to make sense. He had expected too much of Aten—and too little.
“Ishtar is a goddess—and a great one,” Tamar continued, gliding smoothly about the room as though dancing. She was impressive. “But more than that, she is a woman, with a woman’s desires, a woman’s feelings, and a woman’s temper. She is fickle. But though she loves often, and forgets often, she does indeed love. And that love is not really so destructive as men claim. It is true that she loved the lion, and led him into the pits set by man. But to this day that lion is immortalized on her gate and in her statues and amulets. She also loved the proud horse—and so destined him for the halter, the goad and the whip. But now he is cared for at night and he need not fear the hunter or the beast of prey.
“But most of all Ishtar loves man—and while she has taken him out of the wild, free fields and mountains and put him in walled cities on the drear plain, she has also given him rich harvests and beautiful temples. She comes to help him when he gets into trouble, even as she came for Tammuz.”
Tamar was beside him again, lifting away the platter of fruit and holding him with eye and hand. Again he felt that excited tingle. “Even as I come for you, my lover,” she breathed. “Even as I—”
You can not escape, TM-R said. Give me what I want, and I will spare you. I will not deal with you! NK-2 cried desperately.
Your ship. Mine crashed before I could summon aid. I will be stranded here forever, unless—
A serving girl glided in with a platter of fresh-toasted pastry triangles, the traditional cakes of Ishtar.
Tamar shot upright. “By the great stiff beard of Gilgamesh!” she swore. “Did I not warn you hence?”
The girl faltered. “Jepthah told me—”
“By all means,” Enkidu said quickly. He accepted the cakes while Tamar glared.
NK-2 extended his penumbra guardedly—and met that of the enemy. You lie, he said. You would never have let me enter Station A-10 if all you wanted was my craft. I never let you make contact with the station, TM-R replied. My host put her identification on your host, so that your station agent would know you came from the enemy—NK-2 collapsed his penumbra, breaking contact. The Ishtar lion-bracelet! No wonder the station representative had eschewed contact! And NK-2 himself had been afraid to check, because he thought the enemy was hosted in the nameless temple.
TM-R was playing a devious game—and was obviously too strong and too clever for him. Probably there was a major enemy thrust in the making, and TM-R wanted his ship not to escape the planet but to destroy. Meanwhile, the enemy agent had tried to use NK-2 himself as a foil against his own kind.
He would be a fool to have any further contact with this powerful and crafty entity. He had to locate and unite forces with the local galactic representative; only together could they hope to overcome TM-R.
He had gained two things from this encounter, anyway: he had learned the identity of the enemy host, and he had verified that another galactic did survive on this planet.
Now he had to get away—and that meant getting his host away from the enemy host. To do that, he had to motivate the male to renounce the female—and that might be the most difficult chore of his life. If only this planet had spawned good, normal, unisexual animal life!
“It seems,” Tamar said as the girl disappeared, “that the slavelet is too solicitous of your wants. Eat, then, of the food of my goddess—and I shall dance for you and show you the meaning of my faith.” She moved into the center of the room while Enkidu made alternate selections from the two platters.
Twice-thwarted, she was single-minded now, he knew. And she was a woman of considerable physical attraction. Best not to mention Amys at all. Not, at least, until—“Tammuz was god of the harvest,” Tamar said, moving about sinuously, “and Ishtar loved him well. And he—unlike the selfish Gilgamesh—loved her for what she was. When he died she was overcome with grief. So great was her sorrow she braved the terrors of the underworld itself to snatch him back from death. Allat was queen of the nether regions, and she hated her beautiful sister Ishtar. By Allat’s orders the gatekeeper, Cutha, seized Ishtar as she approached the first gate and tore the golden crown from her head and threw it aside to roll, sparkling like the evening star it was, in the dust.”
With a shake of her head Tamar flung off headband and dangling veil and let them flutter to the tiles. Her golden hair, unbound, fell below her waist. She moved more languorously, her body flexing against the flowing lines of the tunic.
‘Oh why, thou Keeper, doest thou seize my crown?’ the goddess demanded. ‘It is thus our Queen her welcome gives,’ Cutha replied.
“But Ishtar’s love for Tammuz made her continue on into the depths of Hades. At the second gate Cutha seized her again and hurled the precious pendants from her ears. And now the goddess shakes with fury. ‘Slave, why then mine earrings do you take away?’ ‘Thus Allat bids,’ he says, unmoved.”
And Tamar’s Ishtar-earrings dropped to the floor.
“At the third gate the Keeper strips the pearl necklace from her throat, and now she quakes in fear. ‘And wilt thou take from me my gems away?’ she cried; but Cutha shows no mercy. And thus at each nether gate she leaves her ornaments: the jewels upon her breast, the girdle from her waist adorned with fine birthstones, the bracelets from her hands and feet.”
These articles joined the decorations on the floor.
“And at the seventh gate,” the priestess said, “her only robe he takes, and sets her before the Queen in nakedness.”
Enkidu swallowed a plum-pit. He had never actually seen a woman in undress before. He had to admit that the goddess took very good care of her own.
Tamar cupped her breasts in the classic gesture of Ishtar. “See,” she said. “I am a woman, and this is my body, and my body is of Ishtar. This is what I am, this is the goddess in me. Nothing on this wide flat earth can match the gift of Ishtar to woman.” She advanced on him.
“No woman has the right to withhold from man the gifts of the goddess,” Tamar continued. “When she offers herself to man she offers Ishtar to him. Thus may they both partake of that which is divine—he because he makes offering of his purse and of his seed, she because she makes use of the goddess’ gift in the fashion intended from the dawn of man’s existence. And Ishtar smiles on them and rewards them both with ecstasy if their offerings are good.
“And as the mating of Ishtar and Tammuz brings fertility to the fields and makes good harvests possible, so does the mating of any man and woman reflect this divine union. If this were not so, there would be no seasons, no time of plenty, no harvests. It would be a terrible crime to deny the race of men its right to partake of this ceremony.
“To this have I dedicated myself. And when the passion is on me, I know beyond doubt that my god is in this union. There is nothing I can do more holy.”
Enkidu stared at her, her barley tresses wrought about her artfully, exactly as the goddess of legend draped herself in beauty. He saw the flesh of her skin, the radiance of her face, and understood that he had been narrow. Tamar had given herself to Ishtar, sincerely and completely, and her way of worship was as valid as his own had ever been.
“Even so, would I have come for you in your confinement,” she repeated gently, and this time Enkidu believed. “And if I could thus advance the cause of Ishtar, it is good. Everything I do is for Ishtar.”