“And accounts do balance,” Dimgalabzu boomed. “The house of Ereshguna has duly paid to the house of Dimgalabzu the bride-price upon which the two houses agreed when we likewise agreed to the betrothal of the son of Ereshguna and the daughter of Dimgalabzu. In token of the due fulfillment of the said agreement, I offer to you, Ereshguna, your choice of these identical, fully executed contracts.” He held out a pair of clay tablets to Sharur’s father.
Ereshguna carefully examined the two tablets to make sure they were in fact identical. Dimgalabzu waited while the master merchant did so. He knew Ereshguna trusted him, but, in marriage as in any other business dealing, trust was no substitute for care and consideration.
“It is good,” Ereshguna declared after he had read both tablets through. As custom required when all was in order, he reached out with his left hand to set one tablet in Dimgalabzu’s right. That left each of the two men holding his copy of the marriage agreement in his right hand. Ereshguna held his up above his head. As Dimgalabzu did the same, Sharur’s father said, “May the omen likewise be good.”
“So may it be,” Dimgalabzu said.
“So may it be,” echoed Dimgalabzu’s wife and daughter.
“So may it be,” echoed Ereshguna’s wife and sons and daughter.
Sharur said, “Father, I know I am in your debt. Rest assured, I shall repay this debt as soon as may be.” Those were not words usually found in the marriage ritual, but they seemed to fit here. He had also learned from experience: he did not swear in Engibil’s name that he would repay the debt within any particular time, nor with goods gained in any particular fashion. He did add, “I hope trading up in the Alashkurru Mountains next travel season will be better than it was in the travel season just past.”
“It could hardly be worse,” Tupsharru exclaimed.
“I likewise hope it will be better,” Ereshguna said smoothly. “I hope the Alashkurrut will be as eager to trade with us as they have been in the past, and that they will now have every opportunity to do so.”
That was as harmless and as careful a way of saying that the great gods of the Alashkurrut would henceforth lack the power to prevent such trade as any Sharur could have imagined. Dimgalabzu looked shrewd. “This would have somewhat to do with the cup that was briefly in my house, would it not?”
“What cup could you mean?” Ereshguna sounded as innocent and as ignorant as if he were hearing for the first time that the world held such things as cups.
“What cup do you mean?” Gulal’s question, on the other hand, was as pointed as a serpent’s fang. Sharur realized Ningal had never told her mother about the Alashkurri cup. He realized Dimgalabzu had never told his wife about the Alashkurri cup. He realized Dimgalabzu would probably have several more sharp questions to answer after the wedding feast was over.
But that would be after the wedding feast was over. Betsilim took charge now with effortless ease: “Let us feast. Let us be merry. Let us celebrate at last the joining of our two houses, the joining so long expected and now at last come to pass.”
Gulal still looked unhappy. Gulal, in fact, looked sour as beer of the third quality, sour as date wine that had gone over into vinegar. But she would do nothing more than look sour now, not unless she wanted to make herself hateful before her husband and also hateful before the family into which her daughter was marrying. She knew better than that. She bided her time. Sharur was glad he was not Dimgalabzu. Dimgalabzu did not look so glad that he was Dimgalabzu.
Betsilim clapped her hands. Slaves began carrying in from the kitchen the feast they had prepared. One bore a large copper platter of roasted mutton, including such dainties as heart and liver and sweetbreads, eyes and tongue and brain. Dimgalabzu admired the platter as much as he did the meat piled high upon it. It was a product of his smithy, its use. a subtle compliment to him from the house of Ereshguna.
The Imhursaggi slave woman came out next, with loaves of bread set one beside another on a wickerwork tray. And such loaves they were!—not the usual flat, chewy bread made from barley flour, but soft and fluffy and baked from costly wheat, bread that would not have disgraced the lugal’s table. “That does look very fine,” Dimgalabzu said, patting his big belly in anticipation. “Very fine indeed. Ah, I see honey and sesame oil for dipping. Truly the house of Ereshguna stints not.”
Betsilim let out an indignant sniff at that. “The very idea!” she said. “If the house of Ereshguna stinted at the wedding of its eldest child, what would folk along the Street of Smiths say of us? They would say we were niggards. They would say we were misers. They would say we cared only for holding what was ours, and not for giving of what was ours when the time came to pass. They would say these things, and they would say them truly. We do not wish this, no indeed.”
“My husband meant no offense,” Gulal said, glaring at both Dimgalabzu and Betsilim. “My husband meant only praise.” She glared at Dimgalabzu once more. Sharur got the idea she enjoyed glaring at Dimgalabzu whenever she found the chance. For his own sake, he was glad Ningal had a more easy going disposition.
But Dimgalabzu would not take Ningal home with him once the wedding feast and ceremony were done. Ningal would stay in the house of Ereshguna. Sharur glanced over toward his intended bride. She was glancing over toward him at the same time. When their eyes met, they both looked down to the rammed-earth floor in embarrassment.
Betsilim, for her part, went from clouds to sun in the space of a couple of heartbeats. “I understood you, father of my son’s intended,” she said, smiling brightly. “Let me assure you, I took no offense.”
Now Sharur glanced toward Ereshguna. The two men, one younger, one older, exchanged small smiles. What Betsilim had meant was, Let me assure you, I shall waste no chance to put you in your place.
Gulal saw that, too. Her formidable black brows came down and together in a frown. But, with Betsilim outwardly so affable, Ningal’s mother could do nothing but frown. Sharur’s mother had won this round of the game.
The slaves of the house of Ereshguna kept bringing in more food: roasted locusts and ducks, boiled ducks’ eggs, stewed beans and peas and lentils and cucumbers, fresh garlic and onions and lettuces of several varieties. They brought in jars of beer of the first quality, and jars of date wine as well. The feasters ate until they were very full. They drank until they approached drunkenness.
Dimgalabzu patted his capacious belly once more. He looked from Ningal to Sharur. “Having eaten so much, will you be able to do your bride justice on the first night?” he asked with a leer and a chuckle.
Tupsharru laughed at that, and poked Sharur in the ribs with his elbow. Sharur said, “Father of my intended, you may rely on it.” Dimgalabzu was not a young man; perhaps he would have trouble doing a woman justice after such a feast. If so, Sharur felt sorry for him. He had no doubt of his own capacity—and his chance to prove it would not be long delayed.
Ningal modestly cast her eyes down to the ground once more. Having known her since childhood, Sharur also knew she had a mind of her own and, under the right circumstances or anything even close to the right circumstances, was not in the least bit shy about saying exactly what she thought and behaving exactly as she found best. These were not the right circumstances, nor anything even close to the right circumstances. Sharur’s own manners here were far more formal than they would have been at any other time, too.
Dimgalabzu drank cup after cup of beer. He drank cup after cup of date wine. Smiling, he said to Sharur, “In the morning, I will wish my head would fall off, so I would not have to feel it thumping like a drum. But that will be in the morning. This is now. Now I feel very good indeed.”