by Brian Godawa
Ninurta spent much of his time with Ninsun protecting her until Gilgamesh returned. He was probably the only thing keeping Ninsun alive from the vengeance of Ishtar. Not that he cared one whit for the cow’s worthless life. But he was commissioned to tend to the safety of King Gilgamesh in order for the assembly’s plan to take proper shape in proper time. It was the command of the King to protect her while he was away on a personal journey upon which only he could embark.
Though Ninurta was a god, and Gilgamesh the son of a god, the assembly had nevertheless established that they would be accountable to the rule of human kings, who were the covenanted heirs of dominion over the earth by Elohim’s own decree. If the gods would seek to take over that right of inheritance, then surely Elohim the Creator would intervene drastically again as he did previously with the Deluge. But as soon as Gilgamesh returned, he would leave this pathetic blubbering fool and reconvene to the side of his liege the king. That order, Gilgamesh could not contravene.
When the herald’s trumpets announced the arrival of the long gone king of Uruk, everyone in the town stopped what they were doing. Bakers baking bread, mothers feeding their children, workers in the fields tending harvest, Sinleqiunninni in the basement arranging clay tablets, and Ninurta overseeing Ninsun. Ninurta whisked away from the pillared rooftop of Ninsun’s palace to meet Gilgamesh at the gates. Ninsun turned and watched her protection vanish like a vapor and she knew her end was near. But she was not about to go down without a fight. She was not going to let Ishtar have the pleasure of triumph. She had been preparing for this moment for a long time. She readied herself for defense.
At the sound of the herald, Ishtar put down a goblet of blood that she was drinking. A smirk crossed her face, and she left her cup unfinished. She had things to do, things she had planned for. And the first thing to attend to was to properly attire herself for the arrival of the king. She had carefully calculated that her outfit should be both regal and aggressive. It should display a queenly sense of religious authority, but also carry an edge of political defiance. She chose a leather bustier and shoes that looked like a two-bit street harlot, over which she draped a grand purple flowing robe with wide semicircular neck ruff that screamed “Queen of Heaven.” She had no time for elaborate make up so she clouded her face deathly white with powder and ratted out her hair into an exploding bush, placing a gem studded tiara on top.
Simply delicious.
The next thing to do was not to greet the king at the gates. That would be too subservient. Let him come to her temple. Her next business was to visit the Queen Mother’s palace, where she knew Ninurta would no longer be leaving the stench of his presence surrounding the shrew Ninsun.
Gilgamesh and Urshanabi approached the city gates. Since he had been released from employment by Noah, Urshanabi decided to take his only other offer of being Gilgamesh’s boatman on the river Euphrates.
Urshanabi was overwhelmed with the glory of the walls of Uruk. And the sevenfold gate was magnificent. They stepped through each chamber as the doors slid open to allow them into the next, until they opened up to the city entrance loaded with citizens cheering their king.
“You are quite beloved,” said Urshanabi to Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh muttered back to him with disdain, “They have no idea who I am, the mob of simpletons. They cheer the victor who gives them bread. They will turn on me as easily. They will not be happy with what I plan to do.”
Urshanabi knew Gilgamesh had been forever changed by his encounter with Noah ben Lamech. A root of bitterness had taken hold. He had rejected the god of Noah and his demands upon him. Gilgamesh’s soul seemed to radiate a darkness he had not seen when he first confronted him in the forest.
And then Gilgamesh saw Ninurta waiting for him beside a golden chariot leashed to a team of grand black stallions. He grinned and Ninurta could tell that Gilgamesh had in him a dark new determination he had never seen before. He had a diabolical edge on his lips.
So this new quest was worth it after all, Ninurta thought with smug satisfaction.
Gilgamesh pronounced, “Ninurta, I have missed you. But the time has arrived for our agreement.”
Ninurta smiled. Finally, this useful demigod was ready.
They mounted the chariot and pranced down the Processional Way with pomp and regality.
Ishtar moved swiftly through the halls and stairways of the royal palace. She made it to the rooftop and slowed down, making sure she would provide maximum effect with a restrained glide toward Ninsun like that of a snake slithering toward its rodent prey. She wanted Ninsun to feel the full impact of fear, knowing her death was approaching her.
She stepped out of the pillars into the light. The cheering crowds could be heard at the gates echoing through the city. Ninsun was at the ledge watching the triumphal entry of her magnificent son. A tear of pride and happiness flowed down her cheek. He was so magnificent, so godlike.
But she did not want to be ordered by Ishtar, so she turned around to face her predator.
Ishtar was thrown off for a second because she could read Ninsun’s face as being entirely at ease. This was not a victim in fear of her obvious demise. Did she have a hidden weapon?
She shook it off and said with a seductive tone, “My fat little cow, pretender to deity, I see you are prepared for burial,” said Ishtar.
Ninsun had dressed up in her finest high priestess garb. She had a pure white linen toga with a trimming of colorful patterns of painted gold and silver. A large necklace of shells draped the skin above her breasts. She had large gold double earrings, and strands of golden willow leaves studded with lapis lazuli and carnelian interwoven into her long hair. She was crowned with the horned headdress of deity. On her back, she wore a special cape made of vulture’s feathers to give the appearance of relaxed wings. Standing next to the large golden gong that was a call to worship, she looked radiant and divine.
Ishtar said, “I love your earrings, and nice touch with the winged robe.”
Ishtar was totally unprepared for the surprise she was about to receive.
Ninsun smiled and said, “I know who you are, Azazel, and you are destined to lose. You will not have victory over me.”
How did she know? Thought Ishtar.
But it was too late. Ninsun raised the hammer and hit the gong. It rang through the land. She stepped up on the short ledge of the rooftop and cast herself off.
Ishtar’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with anger.
You cowardly bovine, she thought. But then she realized she had better flee or she would be blamed. No sense in unnecessary complications.
Down in the triumphal entry, everyone looked over at the palace temple of Ninsun at the sound of the gong. Gilgamesh then saw the lone figure of his mother cast herself off the ledge of the rooftop. Her body plunged to her death in the garden below.
He knew who it must be, but he showed no shock. He was too calculated to let his defenses down. He immediately searched the rooftop for a malefactor. There was none. It was a suicide. He had anticipated Ishtar murdering her, but it was perfectly sensible for Ninsun to beat her at her own game, considering she had no other options once Ninurta was gone from her side.
He snapped his reins and yelled for his stallions to race his chariot toward the palace garden. The citizens responded without thinking by following their king.
When he got there, he saw his mother laying peacefully on her back in a garden plot of white roses stained red with her splattered blood. She stared at the heavens as if in search of the gods.
But then Gilgamesh did something no one expected. Without shedding a tear he got off the chariot and walked right past her toward the palace entrance, shouting heartlessly to his servants, “Clean this mess up.”
Another impediment out of the way, he thought. He was truly a changed man.
They scurried to obey and Urshanabi followed him around to the front of the building where he mounted the steps and faced a crowd of servants.
He barke
d to the head servant impatiently, “Fetch me Sinleqiunninni, I have much to do. Hurry!”
The servant ran off. Then Gilgamesh took a lowly brewer servant and told him, “Go tell Ishtar that the king has arrived and wishes an audience with her in my throne room tomorrow morning.
“But sire,” questioned the servant. He could not finish his exclamation of surprise. It was so obviously out of protocol to send a lowly servant, and a brewer at that, to make a call on the goddess. It was clearly an insult on top of another insult of holding her off until morning, placing her in secondary importance.
Gilgamesh yelled at him, “NOW!”
The servant gulped and bowed and ran off, wondering what his fate would be with the goddess.
Then Gilgamesh stopped as if he had forgotten to make a point. He turned to Ninurta. “Thank you for watching over my mother while I was gone. At least it kept you occupied.”
Ninurta nodded silently and followed Gilgamesh to the throne room.
Chapter 49
Within the hour, Sinleqiunninni led a host of scribes into the palace throne room to greet the king. They brought their clay tablets and styluses as ordered by Gilgamesh and set up their tables in an orderly fashion.
Sinleqiunninni bowed to Gilgamesh and spoke with trepidation, “My lord, I am loathe to report that the palace finances have been raided by Ishtar to rebuild her palace. We are perilously depleted of wealth.”
“I do not care,” said Gilgamesh to the scholar’s astonishment. “I want you to organize a cycle of shifts with your scribes. I have some stories to tell.”
“He who saw the Deep,” said Gilgamesh. He paused. He was dictating to the first shift of scribes recording his exploits in cuneiform on clay tablets in his throne room.
“On second thought,” said Gilgamesh, “maybe you should start with ‘Surpassing all other kings…’”
But he stopped again. He could not make up his mind. Then he gestured to one half of the room.
“Okay, this half write ‘He who saw the Deep’ and this half write, ‘Surpassing all other kings.’ If I cannot make up my mind, I might as well have several versions and see which one does better.”
Gilgamesh told his stories all night long. The scribal school perspired trying to keep up. He told them episodes of his journeys to different shifts. The first shift heard about his oppressive start and the quest for significance. The late shift heard his contest with Enkidu and friendship. Another shift, the story of Humbaba and the Cedar Forest. Still others, his journey to seek eternal life from the survivor of the Great Flood, Utnapishtim on the island of Dilmun.
Of course, he embellished all his stories. But the story of his meeting with Utnapishtim was different. That one was completely fabricated to tell the tales he had heard as a kid of Atrahasis and the Flood. He changed the name to Utnapishtim and completely ignored everything Noah had actually told him. Instead, he repeated the concocted tale of a man who was told by the god Enki to build his ridiculous boat cube because Enlil was going to flood the land. He spoke of how Utnapishtim had been given immortality by the gods. There were just enough details in there to ring true with what really happened, but just enough contrived details to point away from the truth to what Gilgamesh wanted the world to believe.
By the time he had finished, he had multiple episodes copied by many scribes on separate tablets. Then he commissioned Sinleqiunninni to do one version that combined them all into a simpler storyline with an entertaining plot.
Gilgamesh concluded, “And I want you to carve my exploits on a stone of lapis lazuli and place it in a wooden chest to be buried in the foundation of the walls of Uruk.”
Sinleqiunninni sighed. “Your majesty, in order for proper story structure to be maintained, I may have to change some details from your episodic tales in order to make them fit. You may not realize that there are storytelling principles that have been discovered by the poets that are necessary for a good story to hold an audience with amusement. Surely, you…”
“Scholar, shut up!” interrupted Gilgamesh. “Just make it happen.”
And Gilgamesh went to take a nap.
Chapter 50
The next morning Ishtar arrived in the throne room to a seated Gilgamesh and his ever-present bodyguard Ninurta, holding a mighty battle axe that looked like something out of the pit of Death — because it was from the pit of Death.
Ninurta’s eyes followed Ishtar’s every movement as she approached the throne.
Ishtar noticed Shamhat standing where the king’s Right Hand normally stood. Evidently, Gilgamesh was honoring the memory of her dead husband by granting her station. She was adorned in an ambitiously ornamented dress reminiscent of her harlotry days. She was flaunting.
Ishtar was wearing what could only be considered warrior garb of battle skirt, sandals, shield and dagger, axe, and sword on her belt. She took off the gilded gold helmet and looked Ninurta up and down with disdain.
She spoke first to Ninurta, a counter insult to Gilgamesh. “Greetings, majestic Lord of Turnips.”
Ninurta’s jaw clenched. She used a different humiliating epithet each time, as if he had no true title. Of all the outrageous extremes of her behavior toward him, it was ironic that this simple verbal mockery was the one thing that got under his skin like no other.
And she knew it. It delighted her to no end.
She turned to Gilgamesh and said, “King Gilgamesh, may we place behind us all petty offenses of the past. Welcome home, Scion of Uruk, Snorting Bull on the Rampage.”
The verbal jab at Gilgamesh did not work as it did with Ninurta or Enkidu before him. It was Wild Bull on the Rampage, not “Snorting Bull.” But Gilgamesh took it in stride and chuckled as if at a joke.
“Is there a war somewhere I ought to be aware of?” asked Gilgamesh with a touch of sarcasm.
“No,” said Ishtar. “I am just feeling a bit — feisty this morning.”
“Well, I called you here for a reason,” said Gilgamesh.
Ishtar gestured to Shamhat and replied, “Judging by your escort’s hasty replacement of mourning clothes with festive apparel, I would guess your intent was celebratory.”
Shamhat narrowed her eyes at the insult toward her.
Gilgamesh said, “Ninurta and I will be leaving Uruk for good.”
Ishtar’s eyebrows raised with curiosity. “Oh?”
Gilgamesh said, “You may have the city to yourself. Choose a puppet king and do whatever perverted manipulations you want with him.”
Ishtar said, “Where may I ask are you and the Prince of Pumpkins going?” A snarl escaped Ninurta’s lips.
“North,” said Gilgamesh.
She stared at him. He was not going to reveal much. And she could see in his eyes a dark resolve she had never seen before.
“I take it your journey to find yourself some immortality did not end with satisfaction.”
“I know what I must do, now,” he said. “I know my destiny.”
Now it was her turn to surprise him.
“Well, I do not want Uruk,” she said. “Its days are over. It is rotting flesh on a Sumerian carcass. It is not the future, and you know it. Do not treat me like a fool, Gilgamesh, I could crush you in an instant.”
Ninurta gripped his blade and stepped forward.
“Slow down there, Mighty Chickpea,” she said, raising her hand. He growled. She mewed back like a cat.
She turned back to Gilgamesh. “I have a counter offer for you instead.”
Gilgamesh looked at her. He did not expect it would go easy. He knew he would have to negotiate. This goddess was cunning.
“I am listening.”
She smirked and said, “I happen to know that you are gathering all the offspring you have sired through your sexual exploits of jus prima noctis in your naughty boy years.”
Gilgamesh glanced guiltily at Ninurta.
Ishtar said, “You are not the only one with palace spies, after all.”
It was true. Gilgamesh had secretly sent a s
ecurity force of soldiers to go throughout the city and claim royal prerogative over his illegitimate children. Most of them were adults by now, and they were giants as well. They were Elioud, also called Elyo, the second generation of giants breeding with normal humans. Many were already warriors.
Ishtar continued to dig, “You are amassing armed forces to take with you, leaving Uruk the husk of protection with its mighty walls as its only defense. I do not know what the assembly of the gods has commissioned you to do, but I know it is something big, something very big. Now, despite the confidence and bravado of Lord Lettuce Head here, you know full well that I am about the only one in heaven and earth who can become a thorn in the side of your ambition.”
Gilgamesh’s teeth clenched. She was right. She alone could be the fly in his ointment if she but chose to be. And he knew she had already chosen.
She continued with a sense of glee, “Let us face it, you know that I am very talented at chaos and destruction. I am the goddess of war after all. So the sole pursuit of my every waking moment would therefore be the overthrow of your designs, however grandiose they may be. And why not? Can you blame me? What else is there for me to live for?”
“So what do you want in order to leave me be?” asked Gilgamesh. He knew she was far too sophisticated for mere threat. She was not threatening him, she was persuading him by building the logic to her counteroffer. And if he knew the inevitable, he would be more able to negotiate realistically.
“I want my own city,” said Ishtar. “You are no doubt going north to build a new kingdom. If you build me a city further north of yours, then I will have the power I wish to thrive in, and I promise not to interfere in yours. In fact, I will represent your interests in the northern regions and you can consolidate your power over the whole of Mesopotamia, south and north.”
Then she added a finishing touch of wit, “We would be pals. Allies, if you prefer.”
