In the Beginning, by D E Austin

In The Beginning

A Novel

By D. E. Austin

Areshen of Isin, military governor of Ur in the seventeenth year that Ibisien was king of Ur and king of the Four Quarters, decided to observe the military spectacle from atop the House of Dry Reeds, one of a dozen fortresses built into the circuit of Ur's city walls. Areshen glanced a moment's curious interest toward several dozen war chariots now maneuvering beneath the city walls, directing a measure of his attention, however, toward the Lianuri, a small crossroads tavern a mile and a half south of Ur's city gates, a tavern popular with soldiers doing active service in the field since the tavern's patron gods, to put it bluntly as Areshen of Isin was wont to do, were cheap, propitiation of the most meager sort all that was necessary at the door.

How pleasant, Areshen sighed, it might have been to pass the rest of the afternoon, perhaps even the rest of the evening over a cup of beer in the Lianuri, the walls of Ur and the problems of the world forgotten.

Areshen glanced another moment's annoyance toward the raucous din beneath the city walls, another Sixty of chariot preparing for maneuvers on parched, barren field a short distance below, glanced then toward the city itself and the king's palace lying in the shadow of the temple. Ibisien, king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters, would be an annoying headache no matter how brief the audience scheduled for later this afternoon. Still, Areshen anticipated no great difficulties or unpleasantries at the king's palace. A great many more unpleasant difficulties and the associated headaches would come later in the evening as soon as Areshen arrived home and set eyes on Setith, his wife, though more accurately, mistress and task master of the Four Quarters of his house.

An amusing little war along the frontiers at a considerable distance from Ur necessitating his prolonged absence from the city would have been an appreciated diversion at the moment.

At least two or three more cups before either Ibisien, king of Ur, or Setith, task mistress of his household, Areshen sighed, turning his attention back to the dry and barren fields beneath the city walls, abandoned pasture land spreading off into the distance. Areshen watched with cautious fascination as the next formation of chariots began its charge. The billowing clouds of thick gray dust raised by galloping hooves and several dozen whirring wheels was an impressive sight indeed, a sight which must certainly strike terror into the hearts of Amuru's barbaric horse soldiers from the west or Gipul's slightly more civilized hordes from Elam to the east. The first of Ur's chariots tore into enemy lines a quick moment later, young, untried soldiers hurling their javelins with maniacal fury. A quick instant after this, however, and Areshen found himself sighing once again, this time in despondent frustration, his one consolation the fact that Amuru's horsemen were indeed far to the west, Gipul's armies of Elam lounging in their fortresses an equal distance to the east. None of those furiously hurled javelins actually hit their targets, stacked bales of swamp reeds sitting in the middle of the open field. One of the younger soldiers, however, managed a precise hit to the rear of a companion's chariot, that chariot's driver startled and unbalanced by an attack from unexpected quarters, its occupants finally ending an inglorious heap on the ground. A quick minute later crews from both chariots stood face to face angrily brandishing swords, preparing to battle not the enemy swamp reeds but each other, might indeed have done so had not the commander of the Sixty to which all four soldiers belonged rushed forward to intervene.

Areshen leaned his elbow onto the fortress walls, his head onto his hand, and once again sought consolation in nothing more than a long, despondent sigh. When certain that the Sixty's commander, an experienced and talented officer with whom Areshen had campaigned in the western desserts, had in fact prevented an untimely battle among his own men, Areshen twisted a laconic gaze about the city of Ur for another few moments. The city, one of the largest and wealthiest in the southern part of Sumer, was still Sumer's cultural and financial center even if Isin had now become the center of Sumer and Akkad's military command, Isin's Shar Dulur fortress of late a quiet and peaceful refuge from the financial and political intrigue so prevalent in the south, a refuge to which Areshen desperately longed to return. But Ur, Areshen sighed, could just not be abandoned to the barbarians from the western deserts, nor even to the slightly more civilized Gipul and Elam, no matter how pleasant and intriguing the thought seemed at the moment. And besides, Areshen groaned, Setith maintained her primary residence here in Ur; Ur sacked and his wife's property looted would be a bothersome ordeal indeed, month's of bitter, stinging invective better avoided if at all possible. Areshen pondered the Sacred Area near the center of Ur for another long minute, its temple and palaces surrounded by walls quite as formidable and massive as those which surrounded the outer city. The temple itself, the view of which dominated not only the Sacred Area but the entire city, was certainly as grand as any such edifice Areshen had ever seen anywhere in Sumer and Akkad, a staged, pyramidal tower hundreds of feet across at its base with some sort of small - shack? - though Areshen wasn't certain what they called it - a shack no larger than his own house stuck on top in which the High Priests and Priestesses of Nanna and Ningal sat waiting for the god and goddess patrons of Ur to put in an appearance.

Who knows, Areshen sighed. He certainly didn't. Areshen gazed another long moment toward the hectic, constant din which was Ur's Sacred Area, then found himself breaking into a soft, idle smile for memories of a recent conversation he had had with Ur's king, a conversation which had occurred in the back of the king's palace just beyond the walls of the Sacred Area, a conversation which had occurred over very large cups of wine.

Ibisien, still smarting because he had not, like his grandfather, been deified during his own lifetime, spent entire afternoons sitting in his palace in the shadow of the Sacred Area's walls denigrating Shubari, the High Priest of the High Priests and Priestesses of Nanna and Ningal, a position Ibisien would himself have occupied had his divinity been recognized.

"Shubari," Ibisien scoffed, "climbs the temple steps morning and night, plops his fat behind down in the Divine Chamber, and then engulfs said chamber with gas emanating from his own fat behind."

"Oh?" Areshen asked.

"He farts," Ibisien declared, reaching for the royal cup once again. "Shubari sits atop the temple and farts; farts, pops, squeaks, rattles, booms which shake the whole temple morning and night. It's a wonder of wonders the temple hasn't collapsed. If you were a god, Areshen," Ibisien had whined on, thrusting his cup toward the nearest wine steward, "a god in search of somewhere to rest your weary feet, and you wandered into your holy temple atop your holy mountain and found that every other response during the course of the liturgy was a fart, would you be inclined to look kindly upon the city? Ur will end a desolate waste, and it will be the High Priest Shubari's fault. All Shubari's fault, I tell you. It will certainly not be my fault."

"Exalted One," Areshen had answered, not really certain if exalted one was currently in fashion when addressing the king in palace, not really concerned if it was not, "if you want to be Nanna's or Ningal's or whoever's High Priest, why not just climb on up the temple steps yourself. Your guard, after all, is more than a match for Shubari's. As soon as the gods show up, tell them that Areshen of Isin recommends you for the job."

Areshen couldn't help but smile again as he remembered the king's shudder, the long pull Ibisien had taken from his cup.

"The idea, military governor," Ibisien had then belched, "is to have my fat behind placed on top of the temple, not have the gods burn the temple down."

Areshen glanced again toward Ibisien's palace, then toward the Sacred Area's fortress like walls rising just beyond, the flat toped temple with its little house for visiting gods stuck on top, and Areshen couldn't restrain another moment's soft, irreverent chuckle. If Nanna and Ningal ever did decide to put in an appearance in the Holy Chamber atop Ur's temple, he was going to be in big trouble.

"Your only hope," the king enjoyed informing him, "is that Nanna and Ningal will be as drunk as you usually are, Areshen. It still, however, might be to your advantage to absent yourself from Ur for the time being, perhaps a small war or two in the western desserts with the Amuru, somewhere where the gods cannot find you."

Areshen glanced a final long minute toward the military exercises progressing on the open plain beneath the city walls, another Sixty of chariot launching a furious charge against the stacked swamp reeds. When Areshen realized that the swamp reeds would be quite justified proclaiming themselves the victors, he pushed himself along the walls' walkway, then toward the steps which led down into the fortress' interior. Descending finally into the shadows, Areshen made his way across the fortress' courtyard, this surrounded on all sides by long lines of storerooms and soldier's quarters. In many places the fortress' interior walls were in desperate need of repair, plaster and the occasional mud brick from which the fortress had been constructed laying in crumbling heaps on the ground. Areshen was quite aware, however, that the garrison commander was not really to blame for the fortress' condition. Nanna and Ningal were gods with voracious appetites, Areshen sighed, and wondered if their bellies were as huge as Shubari's, the High Priest who fed them every morning and night. Areshen, over the twenty year course of his military career, had been assigned to garrisons in cities all across Sumer and Akkad, had been military governor of a number of those cities over the past ten years. None of the resident gods in most other cities seemed to eat as much as the gods with which Ur had been - Areshen would like to have said cursed, but decided not to press his luck. He'd never actually seen anyone struck by lightning, but he'd heard of it often enough.

How, Areshen dared ask himself, however, could so much grain and standing meat and silver and gold pass through the Gate of Judgment into the Sacred Area and then just disappear? Throughout the day solid processions of porters and donkey caravans wound their way through the streets of Ur toward the Sacred Area. A hundred Scribal Priests sat at table across the Sacred Area's Great Court of Nanna meticulously recording the wealth of Ur and it's surrounding farm villages as it was carried through the Gate of Judgment into the temple precinct. And still, the garrison commander of a wall fortress could not afford plaster for the fortress walls?

Areshen shrugged, decided he'd ask this same question of Ur's king during his audience scheduled for later this afternoon, would do so whether or not Ibisien was well fortified by the royal cup. Areshen finally walked from the courtyard into one of the small chambers beneath the fortress walls. Meshduri, garrison commander, sat at a table beneath the chamber's single window through which daylight entered from the courtyard.

"Areshen," Meshduri mumbled in greeting, lifted a damp clothe, and then rubbed it with energetic fury across the small clay writing tablet sitting on the table in front of him. Areshen broke into an amused smile as he watched this act of mischief from a corner of his eye, lifted the god from its niche in the chamber's far wall, tossed it onto the floor, then lowered himself into the niche, not really all that uncomfortable a seat.

"Tudith is watching you, Meshduri," Areshen chuckled as he nodded toward the god laying on the floor. Meshduri glanced up from his work with an expression of distracted annoyance, continuing, however, to rub furiously at the stubborn tablet in front of him, a provisions voucher of some sort, Areshen suspected. A temple or palace scribe caught doing that which the garrison commander of Ur's walls was now doing might loose the offending hand if he was lucky, his head if he was not.

"Tudith," Meshduri finally stated as he nodded toward the god lying at Areshen's feet, "has been in a remarkably lenient mood of late, has not had a great deal to say about anything in quite some time. Haven't, for that matter, heard a peep out of him in weeks."

Areshen returned a soft chuckle as he watched Meshduri lift the tablet in order to examine the erasure, then a reed stylus in order to forge a new line where the old one had been obliterated.

"Do I want to know what you are writing, Meshduri?" Areshen asked.

"No, military governor of all the king's armies, you most certainly do not," and Meshduri bent to his work.

Areshen could not suppress another soft chuckle, both for Meshduri's use of the title he used when in Ur, as well as for the expression of intense concentration now in Meshduri's features as he inexpertly though carefully inscribed the new line of characters onto the tablet. More than likely the tampering was well intentioned, probably an attempt to extort extra rations of grain for the men in his command from the High Priest Shubari's and the Sacred Area's well stuffed granaries. This sort of mischief was quite in character for Meshduri, was typical of garrison commanders in cities all across Sumer and Akkad. Areshen himself had lifted many a damp clothe over writing tablets during the course of his career.

"There," Meshduri finally exclaimed as he lifted the tablet in careful inspection, a mischievous smile settling into his features. "I should have continued my studies and gone on to the priesthood instead of wasting myself in a military career, Areshen. Perhaps today I would be Shubari's chief scribe sitting in a temple palace drinking wine and listening to Shubari's farts echo off the temple walls."

"Perhaps," Areshen chuckled, then jerked a thumb in the air toward the chamber's southern wall. Meshduri lowered the tablet to the table with a long, despondent sigh.

"That bad?" Meshduri asked.

"One of the throwers nailed one of our own chariots. I would commend the young fellow's aim had I thought the target intentional. Had the javelin drawn blood I might have stood and applauded, so beautiful was the sight."

"I doubt the target was intentional," Meshduri continued, nodding toward the south himself. "You were watching Atiduru's new babies, sweet young things their tongues still wet with mother's milk. They've had no time to make enemies among themselves which must be dispatched in training accidents," and again Meshduri released a long, pondering sigh. "The target was not intentional, Areshen. And Atiduru, you can rest assured, will discipline the thrower all the more severely for the fact."

"Is it my imagination," Areshen asked as he leaned further into the wall niche, resting his feet on the god laying on the floor, "or are these children different than we were at their age?"

"I spend most of my time these days contemplating new ways to pry provisions from fat Shubari, hoping he's sitting on top of the temple farting while I'm raiding his granaries. I have little time to spend personally with my sweet young darlings in the field. Atiduru has not changed, however, the same ugly cuss he's always been. He'll wean his pretty little rabble soon enough."

"Judging by what I just saw, Meshduri, Atiduru is going to have his hands full. I swear these children are different today. You and I played with little toy javelins when we were boys. When was the last time you saw a boy chasing his nurse along Ur's streets with his little toy javelin giving her a good jab in the ass?"

Meshduri chuckled, settling then into brooding solemnity when he continued.

"They're all emulating Ibisien today, I suppose."

"I suppose," Areshen sighed. Ur's king, delicately attired and adorned with a pound or two of cosmetics and polish of every costly sort, had probably never touched a javelin, toy or other, in his life. Twenty years ago, twelve and thirteen year old boys on the streets of Ur strutted, most boasting of the commissions they would one day earn in Sumer's armies. Today most boys wafted along with dainty and elegant step, fawning over each other, each, it seemed, another Ibisien weighed down in perfume and polish, many of them, Areshen suspected, Ibisien's personal pets fondled, fretted over, and eventually debauched in one of the palace's back chambers.

"Atiduru," Meshduri continued, nodding again toward the south and the Six Hundred commander in question, "is still confident that he can make soldiers of the majority of them. When he falls to his knees and prays in despair to Tudith, then I will worry."

Areshen chuckled, rolling the god face down on the floor.

"When that happens," Areshen stated, "I want him relieved."

"Quite," Meshduri agreed. "What, to continue with dainty and delicate matters, does Ibisien have to say these days?"

"I see him later this afternoon. Gipul," king of Elam to the east and a perennial adversary, though since the time of Ibisien's grandfather a tributary of Ur, "has sent the king another daughter, a rather beautiful one, the harem master tells me. You can be certain that Gipul has done something which he fears will annoy Ibisien. Gipul is hoping that Ibisien will be distracted by the new addition to his harem."

"He won't be, of course."

"Certainly not by the girl's beauty," Areshen continued. "Perhaps by her cost, particularly should that cost equal a cask or two of his favorite wine. Anyway, I suppose I should scrounge a Six Hundred or two from somewhere and take a ride up to Elam, see what Gipul is up to. Want to come?"

"Tempting," Meshduri answered. "It's been a long time since I've seen service in the field, longer still since I've seen the east," a moment's intrigue in Meshduri's features, frowning resignation, however, a quick moment later. "But I can't, Areshen, not at least in good conscience. Who will keep Nanna and Ningal from eating too much if I'm not here? Every soldier on Ur's walls will starve."

"You're probably right," Areshen answered with an easy smile toward an old friend he genuinely admired. "By the way, the military governorship of Lagash is vacant, and the civil governor is pressing me for someone Akkadian, or at least partly Akkadian. Your grandmother was from Akkad, was she not?"

"That's why I'm so beautiful," Meshduri laughed. "I could be another Ibisien, at least one of his pets."

"Quite," Areshen groaned, rolling his eyes. "If you want Lagash, you can have it. The last thing we need is any more ethnic problems there. Tell the Akkadians you're Akkadian, and Sumer that you're Sumer."

"I'll be rubbing words off tablets all day long keeping that ruse going."

"Well, think about it, Meshduri. It would be one less problem for me having someone in Lagash I could trust."

Meshduri nodded, appreciation in his eyes. Areshen had known Meshduri for twenty years now, did indeed trust him. He and Meshduri had first met when they had laid aside their reed pens and writing tablets in order to accept commissions in the army, two young officers who for the first few months had all but been led about by hand by their Sixty's First Soldiers, grizzled, thick necked professionals who lived their lives in the dirt next to their men.

"Where are you?" Meshduri asked, and Areshen emerged from his reverie.

"Walking into my first military camp, writing clay still on my hands," Areshen shuddered, smiled when he noticed as obvious a shudder course through Meshduri's body as well. Meshduri and every other officer in the armies of Sumer and Akkad had lived the same experience. "I got old Saran, you know."

"I know," Meshduri shuddered again.

"Saran was Akkadian, twenty feel tall, almost as large around, the chest, not the stomach. I felt like a bug crawling into camp. 'Welcome, you sir,' Saran said. Have you ever heard twenty catapults fired simultaneously, Meshduri? That's what Saran's 'welcome, young sir' sounded like. After I picked myself up from the ground, Saran showed me around the camp, three squad of short sword, one of pike, each man just a slightly less ugly version of Saran himself, all of whom, I was certain, thought me incapable of finding my way to the latrine without my nurse. I almost crawled back to school and my writing tablets that same night."

"I saw old Saran a month ago, just as ugly as ever as he praised your name to the gods. He still talks of Ekluru."

"Does he?" Areshen chuckled, remembering the battle in which he had taken a sword into his own hands when his Sixty had been surrounded by Amuru horsemen.

"Officers," the Six Hundred's High Priest had shouted into Areshen's face after the battle, "do not lift swords into their own hands like common soldiers, particularly an officer who still looks like he could find a place in the king's harem. When you're older," the High Priest had bellowed, "you may, though I doubt it, give orders and direct battles. Until then, you'll stand on a hill and look like a beautiful virgin for your men to protect, not act like a fool and destroy Holy Order."

The military governor under whom Areshen had served at the time, however, had been far more tolerant. And old Saran and the men of his Sixty had accepted their new officer far sooner than was normally the case, despite the fact that that officer had endangered the course of the battle by tampering with Holy Order.

"Saran," Meshduri continued, "said something quite extraordinary, extraordinary for him, at least. He's from Uruk, you know, not particularly devout in his worship of Innana; still, he's wary of doing anything which would intentionally and flagrantly disrupt Holy Order. So I asked him if he thought the current high military governor of Ur a danger to Holy Order. 'You is trying to trick me up, isn't you, sir, you and your officer's ways,' Saran answered. He then kicked dust toward the front door of his house, the way old ladies still chase demons away in Uruk, I suppose, and leaned forward in whisper. 'Areshen,' Saran then informed me, 'is one of them there peculiar exceptions to Holy Order. The gods can't find him, and the demons can't get a hold of him. You might say he's outside Holy Order. So,' Saran concluded, 'Areshen can get away with things which would piss off the gods if anyone else did it.'"

"Perhaps that is why I was not struck down by lightning at Ekluru," Areshen chuckled as he pushed himself to his feet and set Tudith back into the wall niche. "The fact that the High Priest could not explain to the military governor why I was not struck down by lightning was the only thing that saved me, you know."

Meshduri rose from the table and reached for Areshen's hand as Areshen stood at the chamber's door for a final long moment.

"Are you happy now, Areshen?" Meshduri asked, quite aware that Areshen was never really happy when duty required his presence in Ur.

"I'll be happier, I suppose, if I am indeed so fortunate as to escape Ur at the head of an army. With luck, Gipul's and Elam's transgressions will have been provocative in the extreme, and I will spend the summer campaigning in the east."

"Ibisien will want to tag along."

Of course, Areshen sighed. Ur's king would whine incessantly until Areshen relented. He would be a nuisance, though not an insurmountable obstacle.

"A month, perhaps," Areshen continued, "to build Ibi a palace sufficient for his wine stewards, his harem, and his pet boys. Once Ibi's safely tucked away behind the palace walls, he will spend his time trading wives for wine, posing for the portrait carvers. Campaigning, Ibisien is his father's son rather than his grandfather's grandson. He seldom concerns himself with the conduct of the war until it is time for him to stand on the victory platform and listen to the High Priests proclaim his heroism and brilliance in that war's conduct. All and all, Ibi is the ideal king, Meshduri."

"Quite," Meshduri agreed with an easy smile and a final embrace of his hand to Areshen's.

Areshen walked from the chamber back into the fortress's courtyard, then toward the gate room which led through the walls. A life sized Tinruduri, Tudith's older brother or some such thing, guarded the fortress from his niche in the gate room's walls. Areshen offered Tinruduri the proper gesture of abeyance, though he doubted anyone in immediate sight would have been scandalized to any great extent had he failed to do so. Two young soldiers, typical of Ur's, their expressions only slightly more alert than the god's, at least corrected their posture as Areshen walked past.

They move a bit more quickly than the statue, Areshen sighed as he climbed down the outer steps, then stood for a short moment gazing up and down the crowded city street. Narrow, less than three paces wide in most places, this street was not unlike most others in Ur. Born and raised in Sannu, a small farm village a half day's quick march to the north of Ur, city streets still seemed oppressively confining to Areshen. The solid, monotonous walls of mud brick buildings lined both sides of the street as far as Areshen could see, most structures one story in height in this part of Ur. Portals at intervals along the street led into small, unadorned entrance chambers which in turn gave access to interior courtyards.

Areshen waited for a small caravan of heavily laden donkeys to pass, then pushed himself onto the street, walking north. Most of the residents in this part of the city were still Sumerian. Areshen glanced down one of a multitude of blind alleys along the street, this particular one an Akkadian enclave into which few Sumerians would dare venture. Idle youths, many of whom were probably servants absent without permission from wealthy Sumerian households, scowled from the alley toward the better dressed passers by walking along the street. These, Areshen sighed, were Ibisien's and the city's problem, not his or the army's.

A short minute later, Areshen approached a small market square perhaps twenty paces from edge to edge. As crowded as the street itself, small shops and taverns fronted all four walls of the square, entrance to which was gained through an arched portal from the street. Areshen stood at the portal for another quick moment glancing toward one of the taverns, allowed a brief image of Setith's features to float about the edges of his mind, and then without a great deal of further mental debate walked quickly and purposefully across the market square toward the tavern. Setith, a very beautiful woman, was a wife Areshen genuinely loved, most of the time, at least, though Setith of late was a bit easier to take after Areshen had paid sufficient, even generous reverence to one or two of the local beer gods who in this particular market square were quite as generous in return.

"Heluth," Areshen nodded with an easy smile as he approached the tavern's door and a very attractive tavern mistress leaning at the serving board propped across the doorway. Naked save for a small waist clothe, Heluth returned as broad a smile as Areshen's.

"Military governor," she began, reaching for the small silver piece from Areshen's hand and setting it one a scale just to make certain. "Sethurisu is pleased, military governor," Heluth stated as she nodded toward the tavern's god sitting in his wall niche, then reached for a pitcher and cup from a table just inside the tavern's door.

"Sethur - " Areshen asked as he reached for his beer, nodding toward the current beer god's predecessors stacked in a row against the tavern's rear wall.

"It was revealed to me last night, military governor, that Cuthi can no longer be the Divine Lady of my tavern," and Heluth began the formal recitation of the current tavern God's liturgy. "Cuthi," the goddess Sethurisu had displaced, probably because Cuthi had not been attracting customers to the tavern in sufficient number, "was bathing in the river down by the docks when Ningal descended the temple steps in order to bathe in the river as well. 'Cuthi,' Ningal said when she noticed that Cuthi had big tits, 'you have big tits, Cuthi.' Cuthi answered, 'yes, I have big tits. I have indeed been blessed with big tits.' Then Ningal said, 'yes, you have indeed been blessed with big tits. Indeed, they are enormous tits, Cuthi. Because of the enormity of your tits, Cuthi,' Ningal then pronounced, 'you can no longer be the Divine Lady of beer for Heluth in Shensulith Square. You have inflamed my jealousy, Cuthi, because you have such enormous tits. What would happen if my husband descended from the temple in order to bathe here in the river?' Ningal asked. 'What would happen if Nanna were thirsty for beer and he saw how enormous your tits are? Then you, Cuthi, with your enormous tits, would be the temple goddess instead of me, and I might find myself nothing more than a common beer goddess. Sethurisu, therefore, shall be the god of beer for Heluth in Shensulith Square.' And thereupon Ningal drove Cuthi from the city of Ur because Cuthi had been blessed with enormous tits. This, military governor, was revealed to me, Heluth, in vision, as I lay sleeping on my bed last night," and Heluth shook her head vigorously toward several elderly matrons who had paused near the tavern's door long enough to listen to the liturgy's recitation.

"Then what will happen, Heluth," Areshen chuckled with a mischievous grin, "if Seth - Sheth - whatever," and Areshen nodded again toward the tavern's reigning god, "if this fellow has a roving eye himself. And Sheth - the old fellow's not that bad looking, you know, Heluth. Goddesses will be flocking around him like flies."

"Areshen," Heluth protested as she leaned closer, "you cost me another god or goddess every time you visit," and Areshen suddenly remembered that it had been at this suggestion that Heluth's former goddess take a swim down by the river in order to attract more customers to the tavern, a suggestion which had obviously not proven profitable. Areshen little doubted, however, that Heluth's anger was affected. The sultry and pleading heat in Heluth's eyes communicated just the opposite as she grasped his arm in gentle, fondling embrace. "I shall go completely out of business, Areshen, because you have driven all my gods away with your blasphemies. I shall have no choice but to sell myself into your household," and Areshen could not mistake the pleading now in Heluth's grasp to his arm.

"Heluth, I'm just a poor soldier," Areshen answered.

Heluth broke into a mirthful chuckle. She was quite aware of who he was.

"A poor soldier," she chuckled again. "Be that so, Areshen, I don't eat much. I would stay in your own chambers and out of Setith's way. And I'm - pretty, am I not, Areshen?" the pleading in Heluth's eyes ever more genuine.

"Well, Heluth, give - ah?" and Areshen nodded again toward the new tavern god in his wall niche, "give the old boy a chance to prove himself first. Who knows, perhaps he'll turn out to be a match for Nanna. Then Ur's new patron will be your beer god, Heluth, which would please me just fine. In that case, I will be your military governor, and the king will be envious of you instead of the High Priest Shubari."

"In that case, Areshen, I shall order you to divorce Setith and marry me."

Areshen chuckled in easy humor, though he grasped the girl's hand in gentle warmth for another long moment. There was no reason why Heluth's frequent expressions of affection for him should not be genuine. Even though he was now military governor of Ur (was a great deal more once he passed beyond Ur's walls) Areshen was still basically just a soldier. If Heluth had been seeking wealth, she would be pursuing one of the High Priests in the Sacred Area's temple palaces or some rich private merchant, individuals who could for more readily afford to keep both wife and concubines. And Heluth, Areshen realized again, feeling another twinge of vanity for the girl's attention, was far and away one of the most beautiful of that multitude of tavern priestesses who sold their wares (and themselves if the tavern's patron deity was pleased with the proffered offering) in small shops throughout the city. Areshen grasped Heluth's hand again, exchanged a final though intimate smile, the words "maybe soon, Heluth," as usual, in his eyes.

Areshen then passed another long minute dividing his attention between his cup and the crowds flowing from shop to shop across the market square, gazing with idle interest toward a scene not far different than might be found in any other city across Sumer and Akkad. Many faces here in Ur's Shensulith Square were Akkadian, pretty young servants owned by wealthy Sumerian matrons, servants sent to the market square because they were capable of carrying the heaviest loads. The scene was not that different, Areshen decided, than it had been in Sannu where as a boy he had tormented the village's sour old matrons with his little toy javelin. Here in Ur's Shensulith Square, however, a hundred inviting targets presented themselves, some of them young, round and firm, others wide and perfect for a younger boy trying to perfect his aim. A hundred targets everywhere he looked, Areshen sighed with disgust, and not one of them under attack. What on earth was wrong with Ur's younger generation? He must, he decided, discuss this perverse and appalling situation with Ur's king during his audience scheduled for later this afternoon.

"Boys painted like girls, not a javelin to be seen," Areshen had groaned during his last visit to Ibisien's palace. "If this is what Ur's younger generation is to be, I should be pleased to abandon the lot to the barbarians. Perhaps Gipul and his horde. Gipul lives to plunder and pillage, rapes if he can find nothing else to interest him."

"Oh?" Ibisien had answered, that which Areshen could only call sultry anticipation in Ibisien's features, features painted and polished for more delicately than any of a hundred wives Ibisien had ignored ever since he had ascended the throne. "Rapes, does Gipul? I wonder if he does so - indiscriminately."

Areshen turned his attention to a small group of junior priests in front of another tavern on the other side of the square, their attire identifying them as members of the Sacred Area's temple of Nanna and Ningal. Most of these young priests stumbled about in varying degrees of mirthful intoxication. Areshen watched with idle interest as two engaged in conversation with a pair of market prostitutes, these not quite as attractive as the Sacred Area's Holy Prostitutes patronized by the wealthier High Priests, though market and wall prostitutes were well within the means of the younger priests. A quick minute later a price had obviously been negotiated, and two of the young junior priests stumbled from the square in riotous laughter, the prostitutes all but holding them to their feet.

The temple, Areshen thought as he once more lifted his cup, certainly seemed an easier life than the army, or so he supposed, remembering youthful conversations in which fellow students had thought him a relic from another age for abandoning the higher level studies of the priesthood in favor of a military career. No one, they said, goes into the army any more. The way to the top is the temple and Shubari. Ibisien, the palace, the army - all passé. Perhaps, but Areshen could not have imagined spending his life sitting at table in the Sacred Area counting sheep and goats and sacks of grain as they were carried into the vaults lining the Great Court. And besides, it's a trivial matter, Areshen had informed the young critics who had questioned his decision to leave school, but I find it difficult to maintain a pious attitude of reverence toward the gods for more than brief and fleeting moments. What in the name of the gods, the aspiring young priests and scribes with whom Areshen had studied had asked in amaze, do the gods have to do with anything? Perhaps of foolish question indeed, Areshen decided as he set his empty cup on the serving board and directed a final quick smile toward Heluth now reciting the beer god's liturgy to another customer.

Areshen's house lay only another few hundred feet further north from Shensulith Square, though as usual his progress along the street was a time consuming ordeal, everyone in a dense, hurrying crowd competing for narrow paths which avoided the worst accumulation of mud and donkey droppings. Areshen sometimes regretted having accepted Ibisien's offer of the military governorship of Ur, had accepted it in fact because no one else with even a reasonable measure of competency had seemed interested in doing so. As unpleasant as life might have been in any of Sumer's cities, it would only be worse if the barbarians from the western deserts or Gipul's slightly more civilized armies of Elam decided to invade. Areshen was quite aware that he was the most competent general officer capable of directing Sumer's armies should this happen, though not, Areshen sighed, because of any extraordinary capabilities he possessed himself. It was nothing more than a simple matter of fact that most other city's military governors these days knew the locations of the brothels and the perfume baths in their cities for better than they knew the locations of the garrisons under their command. Even a few First Soldiers were beginning to look like High Priests and military governors, the girth of their stomachs truly outstanding, though Areshen had seen a slow reversal of this trend since he had obtained the dismissal of those governors who had allowed the most flagrant deterioration in their commands.

"But he's the High Priest's brother," Ibisien invariably whined whenever Areshen went to the king's palace in Ur insisting that another civil or military governor be dismissed.

"Who do you want, king," Areshen replied, "standing on the frontiers the next time the barbarians flood into Sumer? The High Priests? The High Priest's brother? Or me?"

So far Ibisien had always made the correct choice. At least, Areshen sighed, Ibi still had that much of his grandfather in him.

Areshen finally stepped over another pile of donkey droppings laying in the street, then through the portal into his house's small entrance chamber.

"Military governor," old Shathsurinu began as he attempted to push his bent and aged frame from the bench next the entrance chamber's inner door in order to announce Areshen's arrival.

"Sit, old friend," and Areshen lay a hand to the old man's shoulder in gentle restraint, then stole a glance through the inner door leading into the house's courtyard. Several of the household's other servants, like the doorman belonging to Setith rather than to himself, wandered from one room to another across the courtyard, though Setith herself was nowhere in sight. Sighing a measure of relief, Areshen lowered himself to Shathsurinu's bench.

"All right, old man," Areshen began, "give it to me straight, no art, or I'll have you hung by your feet and flogged."

Shathsurinu coughed a long, mirthful laugh, then leaned closer and spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice.

"Actually, military governor, she's in an unusually good mood. The captain of the Erub was here less than an hour ago."

"Is that right?" Areshen asked, the trace of relief settling into his smile. The Erub, one the larger of that grand fleet of cargo vessels Setith owned, had been several weeks overdue. The Erub's loss would not have been a major financial tragedy to someone as wealthy as Setith, though it would have annoyed her, and Setith annoyed was best avoided by husband and servants alike.

"Priests of Nanna and Ningal also visited," Shathsurinu continued, "offering to sell the town of Polanu to the mistress at the price the mistress had proposed. The Lady Setith is now High Priestess of the goddess Kethlicuri, a divine Lady held in high esteem up and down the Pendurum Canal."

"Then Setith has had a good day," Areshen stated, another measure of smiling relief in his features.

"I believe so, military governor," Shathsurinu answered. "She hasn't even kicked me. Not once, all day long."

Areshen chuckled, though only because the old man did so himself. Areshen, however, was not in the least amused with the way Setith treated her servants, particularly old Shathsurinu, a former first soldier who after his discharge had failed as a private leather merchant in Nippur. When Shathsurinu and his family had traveled to Ur and approached Areshen offering themselves for sale and asking that Areshen recommend them to Setith, Areshen had begged Shathsurinu to look for a gentler mistress. Areshen had agreed to intercede on Shathsurinu's behalf only when the old man had repeated his plea, saying that he had been turned down everywhere else, would have to try the temple farms or one of the construction yards along the new canal, a fate even worse than Setith.

Setith's treatment of Shathsurinu's daughter had been a trying annoyance several months ago, one of those few instances in which Areshen had found it necessary to strap on his courage, stand in front of his wife, and just issue his pronouncement. Areshen had been well within his right to stand before Setith and declare, "I have spoken." The house and all of Setith's business ventures belonged to her, but the household, as long as they were married, was his, legally and finally. Issuing orders to Setith, however, was quite as exciting as issuing orders to the hulking Saran had been in his first military camp. In this case, Areshen had found circumstances dictating that he do so, in the end, he supposed, the only real principle he believed in.

Shathsurinu's daughter had spilled wine onto Setith's dress at the dinner table or some such thing. In a rage, Setith had ordered that a wooden post be driven into the dirt in the middle of the courtyard, the entire household then assembled to witness the punishment. The girl's arms had then been tied to the post, her body suspended above the ground. A nail had then been driven through the girl's hands.

Setith had fully intended to leave the girl hanging in the courtyard until she died. Even when Areshen returned home and ordered that the girl be cut down, Setith had protested with all manner of pouting and whining for the next two days, as usual her cries ending with the words, "you do not love me anymore."

Areshen stretched his feet beside Shathsurinu on the entrance chamber's bench for another long moment and wondered. He had loved Setith very deeply twenty years ago when they had married. And Setith certainly carried those twenty years well. Setith was without doubt one of the most beautiful women in Ur, arguably in all of Sumer and Akkad. But there was something about her which had changed. Areshen himself had had to discipline soldiers many times over the past twenty years, had had to do so far more often in recent years from a military governor's throne. But Areshen was pleased to think that his judgments had been dispassionate, rational and just even when the judgment was death. And there was certainly nothing barbaric in standard methods of military execution, a quick flash of the ax, perhaps just a brief instant's physical pain, though certainly no more than was necessary. There just seemed something very needless and irrational about nailing a girl's hands to a wooden post over a few drops of spilled wine.

"It is a perfectly acceptable manner of disciplining servants," Setith had pouted. "It is quite in accord with the dictates of Holy Order. The High Priest Shubari has said so himself."

I'm sure he has, Areshen sighed as he pushed himself form the entrance chamber's bench to his feet. Shubari, sitting on top of his temple, has spoken, probably in between farts. One of these days a few ten thousand servants and canal diggers and farm laborers belonging to the temple were going to start wondering if Shubari and his precious temple were worth having nails driven through their hands. Shubari would once again crawl through the Sacred Area's walls into the king's palace begging for the army's help. And Ibisien, with a wide smirk of pleasure on his face, would ask Shubari if Nanna and Ningal were sleeping again.

"I suppose," Ibisien had stated when Shubari had crawled into the palace several months ago asking that a slave revolt in the canal yards near Nippur be put down, "if Nanna and Ningal, who in their benevolent though mysterious wisdom saw fit to make you, Shubari, rather than me, Ibisien, High Priest, are unwilling or unable to suppress the revolt themselves, I can prevail upon the military governor."

Ibisien had summoned Areshen to the palace a week later, Ibisien in no hurry to see the slave revolt at Nippur suppressed. Anything which was a source of irritation to Shubari and the temple was a source of drunken, giggling delight to Ibisien and the palace.

"Areshen, my sweet," Ibisien painted as delicately as ever had pouted when Areshen had finally arrived at the palace, "Shubari and his servants are squabbling again, in Nippur this time. Something about nails. Be a darling for me and go do something about it."

With his usual shudder, Areshen had turned from Ibisien fondling two of his pet boys, and then set off for Nippur several days to the north. Scrounging a half dozen Sixties of chariot and short sword along the way, all that was really necessary in the situation, Areshen had then chased several thousand terrified canal workers back into the hands of their task masters. In an irritable mood because of the annoyance, Areshen had then lined the taskmasters and the High Priests who oversaw the task masters onto the banks of the canal and demanded to know why it was necessary for the armies of Sumer and Akkad, busy as it was along the frontiers, to waste their time chasing canal diggers back into their camps.

"Have they lost their faith?" Areshen had sneered in anger. "Or have your gods run out of nails?"

"Wonderful speech, Areshen," Ibisien had giggled in delight when Areshen had returned to Ur's palace. "Shubari is livid. The Sacred Area's walls tremble with his farts."

Ibisien, however, had taken care to maintain a sufficient distance between himself and Areshen, Ur's king now and again glancing toward the sky from the palace's courtyard, watching for the bolt of lightning which must certainly strike down Ur's blasphemous military governor one of these days.

Areshen lay a hand to Shathsurinu's shoulder one final time, sighed resignation, and then stepped from the house's entrance chamber into the courtyard, one of the largest in this part of Ur, the building's basic design, however, not far different than most others in the city. Setith's rooms and chambers, a half dozen of the building's largest, lay on the east side of the courtyard, Areshen's, three smaller chambers, on the west. On the north lay the kitchens and stores, on the south the servant's quarters. Areshen stood gazing toward a date palm growing in the center of the courtyard, then spun quickly about when he sensed stealthy movement from behind. Etwabi and Kinshith, very attractive Akkadian serving girls belonging to Setith, both naked, lunged as soon as Areshen turned.

"I'll have you both flogged," Areshen barked, fixing his expression into the arrogant scowl which Setith wore when addressing misbehaving servants. "I'll have you both beheaded," Areshen tried, though quite aware that it sounded more a plaintive cry than anything else.

The girls, giggling in delight, seized Areshen by the arms and pulled him across the courtyard toward his own chambers, then into a small sitting room.

"Flog me first, military governor," Etwabi crooned as she and Kinshith pushed Areshen down onto the floor cushions, then removed his clothing.

"Just once," Areshen sighed in defeat as he lay back, the girls now running damp towels over his body, "I would like to be shown the least little bit of respect in my own house."

"We respect you, Areshen," Kinshith answered, her expression the epitome of dignity and propriety, for less than a second, however. Areshen rolled his eyes in despair as Kinshith and Etwabi broke into mirthful, clearly disrespectful laughter, dipping their towels into basins of water next to the floor cushions and returning to a task both seemed genuinely to delight in.

Sighing, laying back again in defeat, Areshen was quite aware it was his own fault that he couldn't even wash the street dust from his own body in his own house. In fortresses and military camps across Sumer and Akkad even First Soldiers who resembled old Saran, towering hulks their bodies covered with all manner of battle scars, now stood trembling in awe at the approach of the military governor of Ur, the army in its entirety quite aware that its current commander was far less inclined to tolerate lapses in discipline which had grown into acute problems under Areshen's immediate predecessors. But those were free soldiers, Areshen realized as he stole a quick glance toward the girls now engrossed in their work. No one had forced his soldiers to lift sword in hand and pledge their lives to king and palace. They had done so of their own free will, and deserved a military governor who cared enough to insist that discipline be enforced.

Areshen glanced again toward the girls, and could not understand how Setith could treat them the way she did, girls who were absolutely, unequivocally dependent on Setith for everything, including their lives. Etwabi and Kinshith, in particular among Setith's servants, had been loyal and faithful for years now, genuinely respectful whenever Setith addressed them. But the girls were not free. What else did Setith want from them? What, for that matter, did Shubari and High Priests all across Sumer and Akkad want from a multitude of others who worked the temple's farms and dug the temple's canals? Areshen delighted in the light hearted laughter of the girls now washing his body in gentle and caressing touch, was pleased that Setith had not yet broken their spirits. Areshen was quite aware that he could never bring himself to address them with anything other than clearly feigned anger. Areshen would certainly never see the household servants as soldiers. Why do Setith and so many thousands of other household mistresses want their houses devoid of laughter, expressions of dour submission and defeat on every servant's face? This was never Ur, certainly not the Ur of Areshen's youth.

And one more revolt in the canal yards, Areshen decided with a defiant measure of anger, and he was going to lead the first Sixty into the S