“There!” a guard guffawed. “Eat and drink your fill!” A shove sent Enkidu sprawling knee deep in stagnant water. He choked on the overpowering stench of human excrement and other filth. All about him were mounds of sickening refuse. This, it was obvious, was the dump, the sewer, the emptying place for putrid garbage, animate and other. Vultures circled above.
“Mercy!” the blind beggar cried. “I will die here!”
The guard Enkidu had first encountered grasped the man’s frail tunic, tearing it. He shoved, and the victim tumbled backward into the canal, there to splash helplessly until others waded into the foul water to pull him out.
Enkidu had been too stunned, too confused, and too ignorant to protest effectively when first mistaken for these people. Now he realized that he was one of them, in spirit, and this treatment was beyond toleration. Before he could think things out properly, he was charging up the slippery bank, sandals lost in the muck.
The powerful guard was just turning away as Enkidu bashed at him with the tablet and knocked that conical helmet askew. The hardened clay shattered, forever destroying the message upon it, but he was too excited to care. He grabbed for the guard’s sword, looking into the man’s dazed and angry face.
Something struck him from behind.
The soldiers were methodical and very careful. Enkidu never quite lost consciousness. Only when they stripped him and spotted the mark on his shoulder did the expert application of pain cease. Then, finally, they allowed him to slump to the ground, retching and spewing up the watery contents of his unfed stomach, while they huddled in conference.
They had not suspected that their captive bore the spade—the brand of a slave to the Temple of Marduk.
CHAPTER 5.
The Southern Citadel was a vast complex of buildings set in the northern section of the city not far from the Ishtar Gate. To the west was the Euphrates, to the east the Processional Way. Enkidu, filthy, bloody, and bruised, was taken to the Citadel and on into the palace of the King by the Gate of Beltis. Basalt lions crouched at this main entry, silently roaring their defiance at the passers-by.
They passed directly into the first of five great open courts. Here there was frenzied activity as guards and royal servants rushed about on urgent errands. Tourists gaped at the brightly colored lion friezes done in enameled brick. Free-lance scribes, both Babylonian and Egyptian, squatted near the gateway. Passages led off in all directions, opening to the quarters reserved for the palace garrison, domestic and administrative offices, and the King’s private apartments.
“…but I cannot possibly pay five shekels a year!” a citizen protested as they passed. “My donkey is lame, it has been a poor year for barley, irrigation is silted…” But the stern tax assessor was unmoved, just as a similar official had been to Enkidu’s own father. As such officers had always been, Enkidu thought, and always would be, as long as empires existed and there were men to be exploited and gods who were not merciful. The regime wanted to keep the peasants in debt!
The gods must approve, for they were not far away. These were some of the trophies of war and policy, making the palace of Nabonaid beautiful at the price of distant anguish. He glanced at the plaque under one: a stele of Teshut, bearer of the North Wind—a Hittite deity, according to the inscription. But he saw no representation of Aten.
A guard jerked him savagely forward. “Move!” Enkidu’s hands were bound now, and he stumbled to keep the pace. They entered one of the bordering offices, and there at last he was allowed to rest.
The ceiling was high and the room, though dwarfed by the larger space of the palace, was spacious in its own right. The magistrate’s desk stood against the far wall, facing wooden benches. A heavy metal ring was set into the floor before it. Unruly prisoners, he realized uncomfortably, were likely to find themselves securely fastened there.
The magistrate was a substantial figure in an elaborate silken robe, his head bound in a small turban. Wealth spoke in his clothing, his ornate copper bracelets, his well fed and superior demeanor. There would be little mercy from this man for those who could not buy it.
A few spectators sat on the hard benches and a young court scribe squatted with his jar of moist clay beside him. A few guards had stationed themselves in the back row near the door. A woman sat a little apart, her face shadowed. Her clothing concealed her figure; he could not tell if she were young or old. For an instant he thought it was the thieving prostitute, but quickly saw that it was not. A man stood in the rear, robed in black, invisible in the depths of a black cowl.
The magistrate lifted a bored countenance as Enkidu was hauled before the bench. Thick fingers toyed with the embroidery on the breast of his robe. “What is the charge?”
“Runaway slave, sir,” the guard replied respectfully.
“Oh?” The little eyes lightened with sudden cruel interest. They appraised Enkidu. “Worth much?”
“I’m no slave!” Enkidu protested angrily.
“He bears the brand of Marduk,” the guard said, spinning Enkidu around so that the magistrate could see his shoulder. “A northern escapee, from his speech.”
“This whole thing is ridiculous!” Enkidu cried.
“Well fed, healthy,” the magistrate agreed, ignoring the prisoner’s outbursts. “No outdoor menial.”
“The Temple should offer a handsome reward,” the guard observed. “We can turn him in to the local office.”
“Why won’t you listen!” Enkidu shouted, flustered. “I’m no slave! I—”
“The Temple of Marduk can afford the best,” the magistrate agreed. “But there appear to be some bruises.”
The guard smiled. “He—fell. That’s why he stinks so. Nothing serious.”
“That’s a lie!” Enkidu yelled. “I’m here on legitimate business. I asked this oaf for help and he threw me in the Kebar Canal and beat me. Now he’s trying to—”
The guard’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder. “Slave, are you accusing an officer of the King’s Sanitation Guard of abuse of his authority?”
Enkidu glanced wildly at the magistrate and saw only amused interest in the porcine countenance. The spectators were openly eager; they leaned forward. Justice was a forlorn hope. He tried to think clearly in spite of the rage boiling up in him. Perhaps the truth might spare him further indignity. “I am a temple scribe.”
There was a mild commotion in the courtroom. The local scribe looked up. The woman stood, as though ready to come forward. The guard looked astonished.
“He did say something about a”—the guard stifled a grin—“tablet. I remember now.”
“A temple scribe,” the magistrate murmured. “You, a slave?”
Enkidu nodded. At last they were listening!
“Are you aware that the sons of kings hardly aspire to more?”
“The class of scribes,” Enkidu said, “is open to all who have the talent. Not all kings’ sons have—”
The magistrate cut off Enkidu and the growing chuckle of the audience. “No scribe would remain a slave. Why did you not buy your freedom?”
It was a trick question. Everyone knew that an intelligent slave could be trained as a scribe; even women were not denied, the few who had the necessary capacity. But no scribe of any competence needed to remain a slave, unless so valuable that he was forbidden to earn his redemption. They were casting their net for a large reward.
Enkidu had no doubt of his value. He had paid a high price for his freedom. But it was less easy to cancel a brand than to place it on the skin, and he had balked at the crude and painful surgery required to remove it. He had depended on the sealed tablet to verify his status as a free scribe—the tablet that had been invalidated and lost.