Some of his priests understood that far more completely than he. The younger men in the priesthood were Kimash’s creatures, more dedicated to lulling the god than to exalting him. The older servitors still revered him as they and then- predecessors had done back in the days when he ruled Gibil through an ensi, but year by year death cut through their ranks, as the scythe cut through rows of barley at harvest time.
A younger priest, his head shaved like those of the priests of Enimhursag but his eyes clever and altogether his own, came up to the merchants in an outer courtyard. Bowing, he said, “I greet you in the name of Engibil, Ereshguna. In the name of Engibil I greet you, sons of Ereshguna. May the god’s blessings be upon you all.”
“I greet you in the name of Engibil, Burshagga,” Ereshguna said, and bowed in turn.
“In the name of Engibil we greet you, Burshagga,” Sharur and Tupsharru said together. They also bowed.
“How good when men are gracious,” Burshagga said. “How pleasant when men are polite. How may this servant of Engibil also serve you?”
Ereshguna pointed to that topmost chamber. “If he be not otherwise engaged, we would speak with the god. If he be not otherwise busy, we would have words with him.”
The priest frowned. Plainly, he had not expected that. “On what matter would you speak with the lord of the city?”
“On the matter that concerns Kimash the lugal,” Ereshguna answered, his voice as soft as lambswool.
Burshagga’s eyes widened. Now his bow was not the polite bow of greeting but the deeper bending that acknowledged authority. “Master merchant, if you are concerned with that matter... Wait one moment, please.” He hurried away.
An old priest cocked his head to one side and examined Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna. His beard was not gray but snowy white. Surely he remembered the days before Igigi had taken the rule of Gibil out of Engibil’s hands and into his own. And, by the way he scowled at the three merchants, the men of the new, he remembered those days fondly, too.
Burshagga came back at a brisk walk. “The god is pleasuring himself,” he reported. “That being completed, you may attend him. His eye fell on the white-bearded priest. “Have you nothing better to do than stand and stare, Ilakabkabu? Why don’t you take yourself off to the boneyard and save us the trouble?”
“Because I am truly a man of Engibil,” Ilakabkabu said. “I remember the god first, not a mere man who will be dead and stinking soon enough, soon enough.” He drew himself up with a pride at the same time stubborn and impotent.
“I am a priest of the great god Engibil, as you are,” Burshagga retorted. “I worship the great god Engibil, as you do. But I am not wedded to the past, as you are. I do not pant for the past as for a virgin bride, as you do. Go off to the boneyard, old fool; may your forgotten ghost go straight to the underworld.”
“Engibil will temember my ghost,” Ilakabkabu said. “Engibil will cherish it.” He walked off at a stiff-jointed shuffle.
“Old fool,” Burshagga repeated, this time to Ereshguna and his sons. “He would take us back to the days before lugals, to the days before metal, to the days before writing, if he had his way.”
“Many things pull in that direction these days,” Sharur said. Burshagga nodded indignantly. He had his own kind of righteousness, different from Ilakabkabu’s.
“His years, if not his thoughts, may deserve respect,” Ereshguna said mildly.
“Bah!” Burshagga said. But, before the priest could begin an argument, one of his colleagues came trotting up and pointed toward the uppermost chamber in the temple. Seeing the gesture, Burshagga grew businesslike once more. “Engibil will grant you audience now. This is, I remind you, on the matter that concerns Kimash the lugal, Kimash the mighty lugal.”
He had his own way of getting the last word. As he turned to lead the merchants up to the god’s audience chamber, Sharur studied him. Burshagga, too, was a man of the new. The old had been disagreeable and tyrannical. Burshagga looked to be proof that the new could also be disagreeable and tyrannical. Sharur shrugged. Even the gods had their weaknesses, their failings.
“Ascend Engibil’s stairway!” the priest said. The stairway was one of four, one for each of the cardinal directions, that went up to the chamber of the god. It had one step for every day of the year. Despite being a man of the new, Sharur felt no small awe as he set his foot upon it. He had never gone up to an audience with Engibil before. Engibil had come to him—he remembered with a shiver the god’s voice beating through him on the Street of Smiths—but he had never gone to the god, not like this.
Someone was coming down the long stairway as Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna climbed it. A woman, Sharur saw; she was wearing tunic rather than kilt. As she drew closer, he recognized her: the beautiful courtesan who had stripped herself naked in the street for him and his caravan crew to admire when he came back to Gibil from the mountains.
He laughed under his breath. His brother looked a question at him, but he did not explain. He would not say what was in his thoughts, not here, not in the house of the god. Kimash the lugal had said he had ways of pleasing Engibil even without strange things, rare things, beautiful things from the land of the Alashkurrut. Remembering the lush ripeness of the courtesan’s body, Sharur was certain she would have pleased him. No doubt she pleased the god, too.
And, as he drew closer still, he saw the god had also pleased her. She walked with slightly unsteady step, as if she were on the edge of being drunk. Her smiling lips were swollen, bruised; but for the smile, all the muscles of her face had gone slack with pleasure. She stared through Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna, the pupils of her eyes enormous as a wild cat’s at midnight.
After she swayed past Tupsharru, he laughed softly, too. “She was not a duckling, but she quacked like one,” he murmured—a proverb about the sounds a truly kindled woman made in her ecstasy. Sharur nodded.
By the time he reached the top of the stairway, sweat bathed him. A fat old priest who had to make that climb was liable to fall over dead. Sharur glanced toward his father. Ereshguna was neither fat nor very old, but he lived his life in the city these days instead of leading caravans to distant lands. He was panting, but otherwise seemed all right. Sharur was panting a little himself. He nodded to his father. Ereshguna nodded back.
The god’s chamber was a cube of baked brick with a narrow walkway around it. A door led into it from each of the cardinal directions. It should have been dimmer in there than outside; the chamber had no windows. But light streamed out from the doors: the light of the god. Sharur shivered again.
Enter. The word resounded inside Sharur’s head, and, no doubt, inside Tupsharru’s and Ereshguna’s as well. It was as loud as the god’s voice had been in the Street of Smiths, but not so terrifying. For one thing, here it was expected, as it had not been there. For another, here Engibil was inviting, not forbidding. .
Sharur stood aside so his father and brother could precede him into the god’s chamber. His heart beating fast, he followed them.
Engibil sat on a gold-sheathed chair like that of Kimash the lugal (after a moment, Sharur realized he had that backwards; surely the lugal’s throne was copied from this one). The god was naked, perhaps because he had just had the courtesan, perhaps for no other reason than that it pleased him to be so. He had the form of a well-made man of about Ereshguna’s age, but with all human imperfections removed. Sharur got only a quick glimpse before he, like Ereshguna and Tupsharru, threw himself flat on the floor in front of the god.