He had pleased the gods. He took that thought with him as he spiraled down into the dark.
When Sharur woke, he wondered for a moment whether the mud bricks of the house in which he had lived his whole life had finally fallen down. More to the point, he wondered if they had fallen down on him. He certainly felt as if something large and heavy had collapsed on him.
Raising his head took all the strength he had. Sitting not far away from him was his father. “Sharur?” Ereshguna said softly. “My son?”
“Yes,” Sharur said—or rather, that was what he tried to say. Only a harsh, wordless croak passed his lips. Trying to speak made him feel how weak he was. Even holding his eyelids open took an effort.
But the croak seemed to satisfy his father. “You understand me!” Ereshguna exclaimed.
“Yes,” Sharur said. This time, it was a recognizable word. Sharur noticed his mouth tasted as if someone had spilled a chamberpot into it. He lay back down flat; holding his head up seemed more trouble than it was worth. Those few moments of it were making him pant as if he had run all the way from Imhursag to Gibil.
Ereshguna ran: out of the courtyard and into the house, crying, “Sharur has his wits about him again!”
Then he came running back to Sharur, followed closely by Tupsharru and Betsilim and Nanadirat, with the house slaves a little farther behind. His family hugged him and kissed him and made much of him. He lay there and accepted it; he had not the strength to do anything but lie there and accept it. His mother and sister both let tears stream down their cheeks. A little at a time, he realized he must have come very close to dying.
“I’m all right,” he whispered.
“You’re no such thing,” his mother said indignantly. “Don’t talk nonsense. Look at you.” He couldn’t look at himself; that would have meant lifting his head again, which was beyond him. But Betsilim was doing the looking for him: “You’re nothing but skin stretched over bones. I’ve seen starving beggars with more flesh on them.”
He tried to shrug. Even that wasn’t easy. Nanadirat asked, “If we give you bread and beer, can you chew and swallow?”
“I think so,” he answered. “It was raining beer on me not so long ago. The gods made it rain beer on me not so long ago. I remember.” He felt proud of remembering anything.
His mother and brother and sister seemed less impressed. With a distinct sniff in her voice, Nanadirat said, “That wasn’t the gods. That was us. And it wouldn’t have been raining beer on you if you’d drunk it the way you were supposed to.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling foolish. “I suppose a lot of the things I think happened didn’t really, then. Huzziyas the wanax didn’t come here to drink my health, did he? He raised the cup, and...”
Betsilim and Nanadirat were looking at each other. He recognized their expressions: they were trying not to laugh, and not succeeding very well. Betsilim said, “My son, I am surprised you remember anything at all of the past five days, even if you remember things that are not so.”
“Five ... days?” Sharur said slowly. “Was I out of my head for five days? It’s a wonder my spirit found its way back to my body.”
“We think so, too,” Betsilim said, and started to cry again. Nanadirat put an arm around her mother’s shoulder.
The Imhursaggi slave woman, who had gone into the house, came out once more carrying a tray. “Here is bread,” she said. “Here is beer.” She set the tray on the ground in front of Betsilim.
Tupsharru came up and supported Sharur in a half-sitting position. A god with his voice had done that while Sharur lay sick. No. Sharur laughed at himself. That had been— that must have been—his wits wandering again.
He looked down at himself, now that he could. He had indeed lost flesh, although he was not so thin as his mother made him out to be. Nanadirat held a cup up to his mouth. He took a sip of sour beer, then swallowed. That felt wonderful, like rain for a flower after a long dry spell.
But Nanadirat did not merely want to rain on him, to make him bloom. By the way she tried to pour beer into him, she wanted to flood him. Like a canal that had fallen into disrepair, he could not take in as much as she wanted to give him. To keep himself from drowning, he raised his arm. That did more than he had intended:, not only did it stop her from giving him the beer, it knocked the cup from her hand. The cup flew against the wall that shaded him and shattered.
“Maybe he has not got his wits about him after all,” Tupsharru said. But he sounded more amused than annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” Sharur said, feeling very foolish as he stared at the shards of the broken cup. He remembered ... But no, that had surely been nonsense, too.
“You need not be sorry,” Betsilim said. “Your sister tried to give you too much too fast.” She turned to the slave woman. “Fetch another cup.”
“I obey,” the slave said, as she had when Sharur ordered her to lie with him. She hurried back into the house.
“Bread, please?” Sharur said.
Betsilim tore off a piece of bread from the loaf that sat on the tray. Sharur reached out to take it. Instead of handing it to him, his mother put it straight into his mouth, as if he were a baby. Had he felt a little stronger, that might have made him angry. As things were, he chewed and swallowed without complaint. “Is it good?” his mother asked, again as she might have done when he was very small.
He nodded. “More?” he said hopefully, and Betsilim fed him again.
The Imhursaggi slave woman came out with a new cup to replace the one Sharur had broken. Nanadirat filled it with the dipper and offered it to him. This time, he drank without spilling any. It made him feel very strong. “Another cup?” he said.
“Yes, but this will be your last for now,” his sister Said. “Too much all at once after too long without much will make you sick again.”
“I know how we’ll be able to tell when he’s truly better,” Tupsharru said, mischief in his voice.
Betsilim was so glad for the words, she did not hear the mischief. “How?” she asked.
Tupsharru grinned. “When he wants the slave woman, not bread and beer.”
Betsilim and Nanadirat both made faces at him. The slave woman looked down at the ground, no expression at all on her face. Sharur watched the byplay without caring much about it. He recalled desire, but it was the last thing on his mind.
He yawned. Maybe the beer was making him sleepy. Maybe it was nothing but his own weakness. “Let me down,” he said to Tupsharru. He yawned again as his brother eased him to the blanket. He thought he stayed awake long enough for his head to touch it,*but was never quite sure afterwards.
His sleep, this time, was deep and restful, with none of the fever dreams and visions that had troubled his illness. He woke in darkness, only pale moonlight illuminating the courtyard. He felt stronger. Without even thinking about it, he sat up by himself. That proved he was stronger.
He got to his feet. He wobbled a little, but had no trouble staying upright. A chamberpot sat on the ground not far from where he’d lain. He walked over and made water into it, then lay back down on the blanket. He hoped sleep would come again for him, but it did not. Mosquitoes buzzed. One landed on his chest; he felt it walking through the hair there. .He slapped at it, and hoped he’d killed it.
His grandfather’s ghost spoke in his ear: “You are like an owl, awake while others sleep. You are like a cat, prowling through the night.”
“Hardly prowling,” Sharur said with a low-voiced laugh. More often than not, his grandfather’s ghost was a nuisance, bothering him when he would sooner have paid it no attention. Now, for once, he was glad of its company. Still speaking quietly, he went on, “I greet you. Is it well with you?”