Enkidu sat up indignantly, then winced. “That’s robbery! One shekel!”
“Three,” the boy bargained, pushing him down again.
Enkidu caught a glimpse of a veiled woman in the doorway. “Two!” he whispered. Aloud he said: “Well, I’ll tell you about Ishtar’s descent into—”
“You’ll never convert my slave to civilized worship,” Tamar said. “These Hebrew tribesmen will not listen to reason, and their whelps won’t either. They’d all be better off back in the wilderness we hauled them out of. Depart!” she snapped.
The boy looked momentarily rebellious—whether from Enkidu’s bargaining or Tamar’s tone it was difficult to judge. Then his face cleared, and Enkidu was sure he meant some minor mischief. But he faded out like a genie.
“He’s such a good houseboy, but impertinent,” she said casually, coming into the room. “I may have to have him gelded for permanent use. Now—what am I to do with you, husband?”
Enkidu found the context a bit alarming. He sat up again, catching at the cloth before it could slide off and expose his geldables, and discovered that he was feeling better. No—she could hardly do that to a husband for better performance!
It did not seem wholly wise, however, to ask his imperious first wife for aid in obtaining his second wife. A certain delicacy was in order.
But Tamar had another melon to slice. “Do you realize how inconvenient your escape is right now? I spent two months preparing for this day. Now you—”
“You sound muffled through your veil, wife,” Enkidu pointed out.
“I will wear what I choose in my own house!” she cried; but she flung the veil aside. “How did you break out?”
Enkidu started to stand up, then clutched his scant habiliment, changing his mind. If only he had a tunic! “I didn’t break out, I—I gave them what they wanted and they let me go. You were wrong when you told me that no one ever—”
“Did I say that? I may have exaggerated slightly,” she said, lowering her eyes in a flash of demureness. “But if you could have stayed there just one more day—”
“And let them keep me entertained with hot oil until it suited your convenience—”
She put a cool hand on his bare shoulder, and his flesh tingled in spite of his anger. He knew her now for what she was—and the knowledge translated too much of his righteous wrath into guilty desire.
Salutation, Galactic!
NK-2 whipped into defensive posture. You are the enemy! I am TM-R. Not necessarily your enemy.
Necessarily! NK-2 cried. When did you take over this host? I have been here all her life—and seventy years before that, in other hosts. But our hosts touched two months ago—
Yes. I felt your penumbra, and investigated directly. Naturally I concealed my location from you. NK-2 was appalled. If the enemy could do that—
I could extinguish you in a moment, TM-R said. But I need your assistance. The strength of the enemy was awful. NK-2 knew that this was no bluff. His existence was in peril—unless he could get his host away, and avoid any further physical contact. He could probably fight off the enemy penumbra, but not a direct invasion.
Tamar paused, conscious of the power she had over him. He knew himself to be an amateur in the hands of a professional. He could rage, but he could not prevail. “Why should I suffer so that you could plunder an isolated temple?”
“It is not a recognized temple,” Tamar whispered, seating herself beside him. Her warm thigh pressed against his leg. “It was not for silver…”
Were was his tunic! “For power, then. With such a thread in your veil, you might become head priestess of Ishtar!”
“You would not have suffered long,” she murmured, running her hand down his chest, just short of the angry welts. “You were destined for that dungeon anyway—but I would have saved you, as my goddess saved—”
“Ishtar into Hades,” he agreed sourly. “You would exploit the legends of your own religion for—”
Her caressing fingers jumped over the burns and touched his cloth. Enkidu tried to move away, but she held one end of the towel and he was constrained to stay. He had no way to escape—The curtains of the door parted to admit a slave bearing an enormous tray of fresh fruit.
Tamar bounced to her feet, furious. “How dare you interrupt!”
The slave, a eunuch, retreated in confusion. “But Jepthah said you had ordered food—”
That would be the young house-slave—Jepthah—he had sent to find news of Amyitis. So this was the boy’s vengeance on them! Enkidu rather admired the imagination.
“May an arallu take that boy!” she cursed. Then, sensing the disadvantage her temper placed her in, she reversed her mood. “Bring it here, then. My husband is hungry.”
He was, too. Enkidu accepted the platter and maneuvered it onto his lap, admiring its gleaming abundance: yellow apricots and purple plums, medlars and bananas, and even a decanter of spiced palm wine. It would not be hard to adjust to such a life…
Yet a tiny voice within him cried escape, escape! Tamar padded restlessly as a lioness before him. “You said something about exploiting my religion—”
Enkidu bit into a plum. “Was it for love of me, then, that you planned your foray into the nameless temple?”
She glanced at him with sultry speculation and he realized that he had committed a tactical error. Now she would feel challenged to demonstrate her supposed love for him, and it would be more difficult than ever to help Amys. But all she said, with deceptive gentleness, was: “You don’t understand religion very well, do you?”
“I suppose not. Babylon has made me very uncertain about religion.” Ah, Aten, false god! “All I see is silver-grabbing and sex and torture, and now and then an orgiastic festival.”
“You think the gods are aloof and distant and take no part in these things,” she murmured. “Supreme deities that can never be understood, whose needs and passions are entirely strange. Or perhaps, like that nervy Hebrew slave of mine, you worship only one god, lonely as that must be, and see him as omnipotent and above human emotion—the great judge in the sky, the eternal provider and defender. You prefer him far removed.”
“He has been far removed from me whether I prefer it or not!” What was her point?
“You look at Marduk and you see grasping priests and the wealth of kings. You look at Ishtar and you see a huge brothel,” she continued, with remarkable accuracy. “You assume that because you are able to see no deeper, there is nothing more to see. Thus you both magnify and diminish the gods, and you do them great injustice.”
Enkidu remained silent. He was sure there was more to this than rhetorical debate. Escape! Escape! “If you were to look at a god—any god—with any real comprehension, to see him as he is, you would realize that he is very like a man.”
“Why bother with him, then?” If only she could answer that question!
Tamar seemed scarcely to have heard. “Not only does a god have the virtues of a man, in greater degree; he shares the vices too. The gods are like people! It is this that makes it possible for a mortal to worship a god. He worships what is good and bad within his own self, and it comforts him to know that the god does understand. I would not worship a remote, unhuman god, whether good or evil. It would be impossible for me to do more than mouth sentiments my body did not share. I will not be a hypocrite!”