Pretender

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.

He could not prove that he was not a slave.

“He’s lying,” the soldier said. “Look at him—you can see he’s too stupid to write.”

It was a crude gambit that nonetheless angered Enkidu. “Untie my hands and I’ll demonstrate.”

This was of course exactly what they wanted, and he was soon obliged. He walked to the court scribe, lifted the fresh tablet from his hands together with the stylus, and made a rapid series of characters across its moist surface. Since when do pigs wear silk and copper? He placed it on the magistrate’s bench while everyone in the room watched curiously.

The official huffed redly. He could not, as Enkidu had suspected, read. He was embarrassed to have this so publicly demonstrated. Low laughter sounded in the courtroom as he summoned the public scribe and returned the tablet. “Read it.”

The other scribe looked at the words. He swallowed.

“Well?” the magistrate demanded.

The scribe backed off, rubbing the message out with the heel of his hand. “It is of no account.”

“I’ll make the judgment!”

“Tell him what it says,” Enkidu insisted innocently.

“I—” the scribe faltered. “It—”

“Idiot! Does it make sense or doesn’t it?”

The scribe seemed most unhappy. “Yes, sir. But—”

“Yes what?”

The guard stepped up. “I can loosen his tongue,” he volunteered confidently. The scribe retreated in alarm.

The woman in the corner spoke. “Why not,” she inquired, “put it to the author? Surely he knows what he wrote.”

The spectators were openly laughing now, much to Enkidu’s satisfaction. He was getting his own back in his small way! “I am happy to honor the lady’s request. She is obviously more intelligent than some.” He inclined his head slightly toward the magistrate with an implication the gleeful spectators did not miss. Already more were sidling in the door, attracted by the show. “I merely commended his honor the magistrate on his elegant taste in clothing.”

That worthy sensed the irony but could not afford to acknowledge it. He faced the scribe. “True?”

“Oh yes, yes, certainly,” the man said immediately, anxious to change the subject. “Pig and copper—” he choked, realizing his slip. “He knows the script, without doubt.”

“But he’s still a runaway—a valuable one,” the guard insisted triumphantly.

“I am not a runaway!” Enkidu shouted. He knew it was a mistake to play their game, yet he was unable to school his temper after all he had been through. “I bought my freedom. You can’t hold me for reward. There isn’t any.”

The magistrate glared at the swelling mass of grinning faces. “Fetch me a temple priest!” he snapped to a functionary. He returned to Enkidu. “If you’re not a runaway, what mission brings you to Babylon?”

“I came to find Aten.”

Most spectators did not react, but the hooded figure stood quickly and came forward. A resonant voice sounded from within the deep cowl. “What is your interest in that name?”

NK-2 realized that something was seriously amiss. His host had rationalized A-10 into a god-figure, having no other way to comprehend the imposed incentive to locate the station. But no other native should react to the word similarly. Unless it was host to a similar entity…

The vicissitudes of primitive police and primitive court procedures had been annoying, though not immediately relevant. His host had handled himself well enough so far. But his use of his vocalization “Aten” should have elicited no informed response. The fact that the cowl obviously recognized the term could only mean that the cowl was, indeed, host to the station representative. His search was over!

NK-2 began to extend his penumbra, for he was unable to make contact without it, except by direct physical contact.

A presence was there.

Enemy!

NK-2 withdrew instantly. Trouble indeed! He had forgotten his caution and exposed himself dangerously. He only hoped the enemy agent had not spotted him, or if it had, had not identified the host. There was no way to locate a specific host from the penumbra alone; only direct touch could verify that. Yet the enemy should have a pretty clear notion from the context, just as NK-2 himself did—if the enemy had been aware of the momentary intersection of penumbras.

But the implication! The enemy had located Station A-10! The cowl-host must have been set to intercept NK-2—or any other galactic who tried to reach the station.

All he could do at the moment was remain tightly barricaded within his host, taking no part in the courtroom activities. Until the cowl was gone. Only after he had eluded the enemy could he set about locating the station.

“What business is that of yours?” Enkidu snapped. For a moment he had felt—something. But that was gone now, and he was thoroughly tired of this court and of his predicament.

The magistrate smiled at Enkidu’s words, not pleasantly, but said nothing. This meant even more trouble. Yet if the cowl knew something of his god—Suddenly the woman was between them. Startled, Enkidu allowed her to take him by the arm as she directed a plea to the bench. “Give me this man—until the priest of Marduk comes. I will return him to you.”

The magistrate hesitated, glancing at the cowl. But this woman seemed to have some authority, for he shrugged heavily and said, “Put your seal on this order, then.”

The woman took a small ceramic cylinder from a cord about her neck and pressed it to the tablet that the scribe held out. She rolled it under her finger so that it left an oblong imprint in the damp clay: a miniature picture in relief, the length and breadth of a large toe. Enkidu caught a glimpse of the representation of Ishtar the goddess holding in her two hands Ishtar the planet. Then she grasped his arm again and steered him outside the courtroom.

Had a third party stepped in to save him? He would soon know.

“I didn’t know the roll-seals were still in use,” Enkidu said, fingering his own stamp-seal in some frustration. He did not wish to inquire directly where she was taking him or for what purpose. She was a tall woman, with pleasing curvature hinted by her motions within the tunic. On her wrists were ornate open bracelets, the ends fashioned into the likenesses of lions.

“A few,” she said noncommittally. “The Persians use them, and they will presently be coming back into fashion.”

“The Persians or the roll-seals?”

“Both.” She changed the subject. “What did you write on that tablet?”

“I wouldn’t repeat it to a gentle lady.”

“Such tricks are apt to get you impaled on a very long, very sharp stake,” she said seriously. Enkidu blanched, a sudden vision of the impaled felon on the north highway presenting itself. He hadn’t thought of that, and wished she hadn’t reminded him.

He had led too sheltered a life. He had to school himself to realize that he was not a free agent at the moment. Justice was hard on strangers, and Babylonian justice could be sharply pointed. He rubbed his rear reflexively.

“I see that you understand,” she murmured. “That’s one reason I interceded. You are too independent for a slave. You have forgotten that this is Babylon, where runaways are not coddled. Your value as a scribe will not protect you.”

“I’m not a slave!”

Her eyes studied him. They were almond shaped, set in a mature but handsome face. “You are now,” she pointed out. “They won’t let you go without their reward.”

“There is no reward!”

She cautioned him with a gesture. “In a moment. Now—follow me and try to look like a eunuch.”

Astonished, Enkidu did his best to comply. After the recent beating he had absorbed this wasn’t so much of a feat.

She had taken him to the northwest section of the palace grounds, where a small hill rose—the only hill he had seen in this flat land. They mounted a long series of steps to a walled structure about fifty paces long. The wall was of stone—unusual in this rockless land of the twin rivers.

The steps climbed the side of the wall, turned, and passed through a gap. Guards stood aside and Enkidu’s guide passed through. Inside was foliage.

They were in the hanging gardens! Palms grew in alcoves set in an inner wall, and exotic plants flourished in carefully tended plots. Steps went up to a higher level. The woman took her seat on a sheltered bench and gestured for him to join her.

“Who are you?” he asked. “I thought only the King’s harem was allowed here.”

She smiled indulgently. “Have I given you cause to think otherwise, innocent outlander?” Her features were delicate and fair in this light, her hair like barley before the harvest. She must be of northern stock; he had heard these people were fair. She was comely, certainly.

“Am I still a eunuch?”

She laughed. “Perhaps when you are clean I shall be able to tell.” She summoned him to a fountain springing from the wall nearby and made him duck his head in the flowing water. “I am Tamar. That is much of what you need to know.” She cleaned his face and hair with a delicate cloth. “You have been beaten,” she observed. “What was the provocation?”

He told her of the events of the night and the morning. As he talked he became acutely conscious of the nearness of her body as her tunic pulled tight beneath her reaching arms. Once her shrouded breast brushed his shoulder, and he knew that the contact had not been accidental.

“Those are the scavengers of Rimut, watchdog of the King,” she said. “Every day they comb through the city searching out the poor, the infirm, victims of plague or other useless creatures and herd them out of the city. This is lawful. Stay clear of them. Now the feet.”

It was a bit late to advise him to stay clear; he had already been dumped in the Kebar! Enkidu dipped his bare and battered feet into the coolness. Tamar rinsed her cloth and to his great embarrassment began to wipe away the crusted dust and dung. He had been barefoot since the canal episode, and the gentle cleansing was a luxury.

“Why was your tablet so important?” she asked next. “Perhaps it was broken—but couldn’t someone have put the pieces together in order to read the message?”

“It is plain you are no scribe,” he said. She shot him a sultry look and began to scrub his knees. He went on quickly, before she could decide that his tunic also needed washing. “I mean, you probably believe that a person’s signature, the stamp of his seal, is a guarantee that the document is genuine. It is true that the signature of the originator and of the witnesses cannot be forged; but the document could still be altered. Any scribe could scratch in an extra wedge or two and change the entire meaning. Must you do that?”

She was now well above the knees. “No,” she said judiciously, “I don’t believe you are a eunuch, after all.” But she had mercy and ceased her upward spiraling.

“So the original tablet is protected with an envelope,” Enkidu continued, all too conscious of the truth of her observation. “This is merely another layer of clay, the thickness of a wafer. It is wrapped around the original and sealed. Then the identical document is inscribed on the surface of the envelope, and the witnesses impress their signatures just as before. Once letter and envelope harden—”

Gently she led him on around the tiers of the garden, past strange blooms and flowing irrigation channels. Where, he wondered, did the water come from? And why was he allowed here? He glanced about, half expecting the guards to realize their mistake and come to make him a eunuch in fact as well as name.

“But it should be easy to break open the envelope, change the message, then make a new envelope to match,” Tamar pointed out. “Oh—but I had forgotten the seals.”

“That’s right. An unprotected document can be forged—but not the seals on the envelope. And since the clay shrinks as it dries, a fresh envelope on a tablet already hardened always cracks open. You cannot tamper with such a document.”

“But the envelope on your tablet was destroyed—”

“Making the document suspect. The temple priests would not even have bothered to read it.”

“It follows, then, that you are either an unemployed man or a runaway slave.”

“It follows,” he agreed, glumly.

She brought him to a halt beside a leaning date-palm. “My handsome young friend, you are in even greater trouble than you suspect. Let me explain.”

“But the priests at Calah will inquire if they do not hear from me, and they will verify that—”

She grasped his elbows with both hands and brought her lovely face close. “Listen to me, innocent scribe,” she said quietly but rapidly. “I know Babylon as you do not. You were a fool to delay your approach to the priesthood here for even one day. You could easily have toured the city after you were settled, with your money and your position secured. You were twice a fool to dally with a common harlot”—she waved aside his attempted disclaimer—“and to spend the night at her mercy. You were thrice a fool to argue with the sanitation squad, which brooks no interference in its purging of the city. And four times a fool you were to make the magistrate in court look like the fool he is. He will now be your enemy. But your crowning idiocy—”

“Aten protect me!” he murmured contritely.

Her eyes flashed. “That is the stupidity that will cost you everything,” she cried, then immediately hushed her voice. “You uttered that name in public, where Amalek heard you. Where is your sense of—?”

“Aten? But he is my god!”

She dipped her head and beat gently against his chest. “Ten times a fool!” she exclaimed. “Don’t say that name again. There is no temple in Babylon for this god you seek. Instead there is a mystery cult, nameless and obscure, that will stop at nothing to stamp out that name from either public or private knowledge.”

NK-2, deep buried yet listening, came abruptly alert. This was the action of the enemy, surely—but to what conceivable purpose? Station A-10 would under no circumstances indulge in local politics; it existed solely as a contact point for galactics. The enemy should have no need to expunge it this way. Far easier to dissipate the galactic representative outright, irrespective of native repercussions. What was going on?

“The hooded one—Amalek you called him?—just what is his authority?” Enkidu asked after a pause.

Tamar shrugged. “He is the go-between—the emissary of the nameless temple to the palace of the King. He will surely buy you and take you to their chief inquisitor, Sargan. You have uttered the forbidden name. You will not be seen on the streets of Babylon again. That’s why I—”

“Buy me? Kill me?” Enkidu was horrified. “How can he get away with that?”

“The magistrate is greedy, and you have embarrassed him. He will declare you to be a runaway slave. Amalek will offer a generous price. The priest of Marduk will stamp his approval, since you bear the spade of Marduk, and he will pocket a share of the profit. That way there will be no loss if you turn out not to be a slave: the transaction is complete and authorized by all parties. I have seen such things happen before. Your little temple at Calah will not venture to oppose that of Babylon.”

There was a dismaying ring of truth to her words and logic. “Why did you bring me here? To help me escape?”

She sighed. “You are a country innocent, and I would like nothing better than to take you away to safety. But I would be in rather hot oil myself, since my own seal is on the record. Nevertheless I am going to help you. The chance of success is narrow, but—”

“Who are you?” Enkidu demanded, suddenly suspicious. “Why should you interest yourself in helping me, especially if my prospects are as poor as you say? What brought you to that court in the first place?”

“Let us just say I have a foolish sentiment for fools. It is fortunate that King Nabonaid has thrown these palace gardens open to, uh, us, during Marduk’s festival; it gives me a place to try to talk some sense into you. Now we’ll have to do this immediately. Much longer and they’ll be suspicious.”

“Do what?”

“Get married, of course. Fortunately I know a priest of Marduk who will—”

Enkidu was too astonished to say a word. Could this woman actually want to marry him, after calling him a five-fold fool and proving it? She would be marrying a slave, and one with bad prospects. It did not make any sense at all.

She mistook his expression of doubt. “I am a free woman, and unmarried, I assure you. Now we must hurry.”

Enkidu tagged after her, finding his tongue at last. “But there has been no betrothal,” he said stupidly. “Your father—”

“I have no father, no brother,” she replied sharply. “Ishtar will give me away—the goddess of love.”

“And of battle,” Enkidu murmured.

They came to a break in the beauty of the terraced gardens. Leather pails, heavy with water, dripped as they were hauled up along a system of pulleys. Slaves guarded their journey, sweating as they transferred the pails to a new pulley and hauled on the ropes. This was the origin of the irrigation streamlets trickling down the conduits: ropes and muscles. All the laborers were eunuchs.

Tamar found what she was searching for: a sheltered alcove cut into the wall beside the bucket system. Inside was the overseer, a priest of Marduk, with his clerk. Tamar explained her business tersely.

The priest seemed to be a friend of hers. He nodded. He then barked orders to his clerk, who set to work imprinting a tablet. Tamar took Enkidu by the hand and led him before the tiny altar set into the stone.

“But—?” Enkidu began.

“We don’t have time,” Tamar whispered. “Save your questions for later.”

He marveled even as it was happening that he accepted her initiative so readily. How could he understand her motives and his own? Perhaps he was merely responding to her certainty, since he had been raised as a slave. He took the loose veil of Tamar in his hand and put it up to cover her face in the symbolic gesture of marriage. “She is my wife,” he said. That made it so.

They stamped their seals in the tablet together with those of the priest and the scribe. The seals were stamped again in the soft clay envelope. The priest gave them the blessing of Marduk, greatest of gods, and the ceremony was over. Enkidu had a wife.

Tamar took the tablet in her hands and hid it under her tunic. “Now we must return,” she said.

“You worship Ishtar,” he said as she urged him along, remembering the bracelet. The lion was Ishtar’s symbol.

She glanced at him, amused. “If it has breasts, it worships Ishtar.” Then she became serious. “You’ll find that Ishtar can do more for you—and in more ways—than Marduk, king of the gods though he thinks he is. Ishtar is the true ruler of Babylon. Remember that, when you need help. Ishtar is always present.” She halted, struck by a new thought. She removed her bracelet and handed it to him. “My dowry. Keep it with you always, Tammuz.”