To the god of wells
To the god of lions
To the god of murderers
Then she turned away and put her arms around Sharo. Warmth rose off him in the dark. When they got back to the house, they found the shattered clay shards everywhere, their father’s blood congealing on the clay floor.
‘Sharo,’ Aurya said, hearing her voice hoarse from crying, ‘help me clean this up.’
‘Aurya, are they going to kill me?’ Sharo asked, his eyes wide.
‘Sharo, shut up and go find something to clean this up!’
Sharo just sat down on the floor amid the debris, clutching his head. Aurya fetched their father’s second shirt, and mopped up the blood on the floor. She burned the shirt in the cold fire pit, warming her shaking hands on the precious heat. She buried the shards in the earth outside. When she came back inside, Sharo was curled up on his mat, his whole body shaking.
‘Aurya,’ Sharo said, his back to her. ‘Aurya, I can’t stop remembering it.’
She lay down next to him and held him for some time, stroking his hair.
‘Try to think of something else, Sharo.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Tell me the rest of the story then. The story with the lions.’
He took a breath, and she thought he would refuse.
‘The wild man Enkidu and Gilgamesh the King embraced in the smoke and ruins,’ he said.
The wild man Enkidu and Gilgamesh the King embraced in the smoke and ruins.
After that, their friendship filled the King with good. And soon they decided that they would go on a great adventure.
‘We should fix what we’ve broken,’ Gilgamesh told his new friend. ‘We should build a new gate for the city. There is a forest in a land far away, a twilight forest of tall cedars, perfect for gate beams. But the trees belong to Enlil, King of the Gods. He made a demon called Humbaba to guard them.’
The wild man was afraid.
‘I have heard stories of Humbaba. The animals whisper about him. He is the lurker in the gloom, he has a thousand legs.’
‘It’s an adventure!’ the King cried. ‘What, are you afraid?’
So they gathered fifty men and set out into the wilderness.
He didn’t tell much of the story, but it seemed to last a long time. Whenever Aurya listened to Sharo tell their mother’s stories, it was like listening to two voices at once: her brother’s soft voice, rising and falling, and the second, silent voice that first told him the story all those years ago. If Aurya listened hard enough, she could hear the suggestion of that voice, its rumour just below the threshold of hearing. When Sharo slowed and came to a stop, she lay there for some time beside him.
‘Sharo. What do you remember from the day our mother died?’
He shifted where he was lying.
‘I don’t remember anything, Aurya,’ he murmured. ‘You know that. It’s a locked door.’
‘You must remember something.’
‘Nothing.’
Aurya lay beside him and her whole body gave over to shivering. She thought of the way her father had cackled as he grabbed her wrists, the smell of his breath. She thought of the way the lion had looked up at her from the pit, those points of moonlight in its eyes.
‘Sharo, have you ever heard of the house of dust?’
Sharo didn’t answer. He was already asleep.
When Aurya woke up, sun was coming in through the window. She remembered all at once where she was, and what had happened. She heard drums and people on the river.
‘Sharo, wake up!’
Aurya reached for the necklace that Nebo-Pishtim had stolen from her, but it wasn’t there. She crawled to her feet and went to the door that backed out on to their field, covered in low morning fog. On the river, she could just make out a shape: a long boat cutting swathes in the water, lance-men with coloured shields lining the prow. The sound of it was all dulled by the mist: the bell, the jangling chains, the oarsmen’s grunts and the slosh of their oars, the steady beat of the pace-keeping drum. Then from the fog bank came another boat, and another, until there were more than Aurya knew the numbers for. Between them was a small but beautiful craft, lined with ornate shields, its whole deck covered in a plum-pink awning. As the craft got closer to the bank, Aurya saw a man in robes of peacock colours sitting on a high seat on board, with a servant holding a palm leaf over his head, and a boy in a strange crane-feather headdress holding the bell.
‘By the gods Nabu and Marduk, and the lord of the lands of Ashur,’ the peacock-robed man cried out as his boat drew up to the bank. ‘Where are you, mason? Come out!’
The boat landed on the bank, crushing a coracle moored there by the charrer and his sons. The feather-headed boy struck the bell rapidly. Behind him, the other boats dropped their anchors with a chorus of watery crashes. Aurya took a deep breath and tugged on her brother’s shirt, and stepped out of the door.
‘Sharo, we have to go meet them. Can you lie, Sharo? If they ask you anything?’
‘I don’t know, Aurya. I don’t think so.’
She squeezed his shoulder.
‘Don’t say anything, Sharo. You promise?’
He nodded, but she couldn’t tell if he’d understood. Aurya thought she might throw up. She steadied herself on the slab of gypsum, felt the smooth cool of its surface, slightly sheened with dew, and gulped the morning air until the feeling lessened. Then they made their way down the bank to the boat.
The man in the peacock robes stood up from his seat and puffed out his chest when he saw the two children. The teams of slaves dropped their oars and jumped off the lower deck, with their shaved heads bowed, laying down split planks on the mud. Aurya became aware of her bare feet, muddy clothes and the wound on her head as the finely dressed lord looked her over.
‘You two, you beggar children,’ the man said. ‘We’re looking for Tappum the mason. He was supposed to meet us here. Do you know where we can find him?’
‘We’re not beggar children,’ Aurya called out. ‘Tappum is our father. But he never came home last night.’
‘Never came home?’
‘Sometimes he doesn’t come back for days. He has a demon in his head.’
The man scratched his nose and took a long breath. Aurya knew she had to get rid of these people, before they discovered her father’s body.
‘A demon … Well, we’re here to pick up a piece of stone. That one.’ He gestured up the bank to where the gypsum slab was visible through the trees. ‘But we can’t do that until the man specified by the contract is present.’
‘The contract?’ Aurya said. ‘Why, what does the contract say exactly?’
The man massaged his temples, and flicked his boy servant’s shoulder with the back of his hand.
‘What does it say? Get it out!’
The boy with the crane feathers had a wiry frame and dark, close-shaved hair. He rummaged around in the piles of crates and cargo, and eventually produced a baked clay tablet, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.
‘Tappum the mason, son of Iarbi-ilu, has sold one slab of gypsum, having sworn its quality to be pure. The buyer is Bel-Ibni, on behalf of the palace of King Ashurbanipal. Both hearts are content. By the name of the gods Shamash, Ashur and Ishtar and the city of Nineveh, in days to come, neither brothers, sons, family on either side –’
‘Skip to the part about the collection!’ the peacock-robed man barked. The servant with the palm leaf intensified his wafting. The boy stuttered and pushed his headdress back on his head, ran his finger along the tablet. Aurya watched him with wonder as he turned the lump of clay into words, as strange as turning a river rock into a sunrise.
‘… the payment is complete, and the collection of the item will be conducted on the fifteenth of the month of Shebat,’ the boy read. ‘The King’s servants will collect the stone from the house of Tappum the mason, and thereafter –’
‘So he doesn’t have to be here?’ Aurya piped. The peacock man settled
his gaze on her. She felt the callipers of his eyes testing her.
‘Doesn’t have to be here … and why do you care? Are you little thieves posing in this man’s house while he’s away? Trying to steal from him?’
‘We’re not thieves!’ Aurya said, feeling her cheeks flush red. ‘And we’re not beggars.’
The peacock man made a clucking sound with his tongue. He gave his boy servant another flick.
‘All right. We’ll take the stone.’ He motioned to two bearded soldiers already on the bank. ‘Go and search around the river, will you? In case the mason’s fallen asleep somewhere in the reeds.’
A light shaking passed over Aurya, but she fought it. The men wandered off in the direction he pointed, towards the old village and the pit, parting the reeds with their spears. Aurya said quick prayers:
To the god of briars
To the god of mist
To the god of orphans
At the peacock man’s word, the labourers with their shaved heads filed up to the house to where the stone lay. They worked without instruction, lashing their ropes to the sledge, lining up and spitting on their hands before they set their backs in, their muscles standing out like balled fists. The ropes creaked and after a few heaves, the whole heavy load slid over the mud and knotted roots of the field. Aurya looked over the fine boats rocking on the water, at the men’s clothes. She imagined the beautiful place they must come from. How terrible it would be, she thought, to go back to that house, where their father’s ghost must already have begun to roam.
‘Come here, girl,’ the peacock man commanded. ‘Put your fingernail marks on the contract.’
Aurya came up to the crane-feather boy, who didn’t meet her eyes, and pressed her nails into the cool clay. She wished she still had her mother’s seal necklace so she could use that to bind the contract – then these city people would know that she wasn’t just a hungry river girl.
‘Where are you taking the stone?’ she asked in a tiny voice. The boy glanced down at her.
‘To Nineveh, of course.’
Nineveh: that name, full of every childhood dream, hit Aurya with the strength of a strong beer. She looked back at the slaves heaving the stone, the mud oozing beneath its runners, the slave driver shouting as he flicked at the men’s heels with a reed, inching it closer to the boat with every heave. When it was on board, these people would leave for ever, and then Aurya and Sharo would be alone. And then a powerful notion swept over her, all at once and full of certainty, like the appearance of a brightly coloured bird in the trees.
‘Our father did tell us one thing,’ Aurya said to the peacock man, her voice shaking.
‘What is it?’
She drew closer to Sharo, feeling the comfort in his presence.
‘He said my brother and I had to go with the stone, to make sure it reaches the city.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ the peacock man said. He slumped back down on his high seat on the deck.
‘He insisted,’ Aurya said, hearing the desperation in her own voice. ‘He said not to make the deal otherwise.’
The peacock man sighed, and the scribe handed him the tablet. He took out his cylinder seal, larger and more ornate than her mother’s had been, and rolled it into the clay with a flourish.
‘You’ve already made the deal, river girl. And I’m not about to start taking legal advice from a hungry little –’
‘Master Bel-Ibni!’
The peacock man looked up with pursed lips and saw the two soldiers he’d sent hurrying out of the reeds. Aurya saw by their white looks that they had found the pit.
‘What is it? Speak, men.’
‘The mason …’ the taller began, but then glanced at the two children. He bounded through the mud and up the gangplank to whisper into the peacock man’s ear. Aurya held her breath. The peacock man’s cheeks fell, and he removed his fine cloth cap. His eyes moved very slowly down to where Aurya and Sharo stood, but still he didn’t quite look at them.
‘Your father … he had some kind of a demon inside him, you said?’
Aurya stuck out her jaw.
‘Yes, my lord.’
The man scrunched his cap in his fist.
‘It seems your father has met with an accident. It seems he has fallen into an abandoned well, where a lion was trapped. A terrible accident. A frightful thing.’
Aurya raised her hands to her mouth, covered her face. There could have been tears underneath, she thought. It would be easy to believe. The stone slab was still moving down the bank; she felt its progress trembling the ground through the soles of her feet, and with each passing moment, her chance to escape that place was disappearing.
‘Please, my lord. We want to come with you, to the city,’ Aurya said. ‘We have family there. A cousin. We can stay with them.’
The peacock man shook his head.
‘This isn’t a children’s tablet house. I’m sorry about your loss, but this is the royal flotilla of the King of Assyria. And it’s an overnight journey to Nineveh.’
And just then, there was a blast from a horn. Everyone froze and turned to its source: the plum-pink awning on the boat still moored on the river. Its entrance split open like a flower and two soldiers in armour stepped out, with a servant blowing the horn trumpet. The peacock man turned in what looked like fright. Everyone, all the soldiers and sailors on the boats, threw themselves on to the deck. Even the slaves heaving the stone dropped their ropes and fell into the mud. The peacock man ducked down on one knee as fast as he could. Aurya watched, stunned. From the tent, a man stepped out. He was tall and thick-chested, with black kohl lining his eyes; his beard, streaked with lines of grey, was plaited and full of beads. His robe was a deep blue, embroidered with gold flower patterns. He wore a shimmering band around his head and another coiled band around his bicep, and another on his wrist with the pattern of a blossoming flower.
‘What is going on here?’ the man said, speaking slowly but effortlessly, loud enough for everyone to hear. He was a man who had never been rushed in his life, who always took as long as he wanted to speak. His accent was beautiful, redolent with gold and petals, more refined than the most educated teacher Aurya had ever met. There were rings on his fingers, and clusters of golden pendants hanging from his ears.
‘Radiant lord, my King, my sun,’ the peacock man said, his head down, his voice changed completely. ‘It’s nothing, a short delay. We are about to be on our way.’
The King cast his eyes around the riverbank, moving as if through honey.
‘Who are those two dirty children?’ he said. His eyes were half-lidded, lazy.
‘Just the children of this mason, my lord. A brother and sister. They live here on the riverbank. It seems their father was killed by a lion. They’re asking to come with us to the city.’
‘A brother and sister,’ the King said dreamily. He smiled, well-worn lines crinkling his eyes. ‘And they want to go to the city? Bel-Ibni, do you think this could be the auspicious surprise you saw in the entrails yesterday?’
‘No, my lord, I don’t think –’
‘Well, we can’t take that risk, Bel-Ibni. Let them aboard. What are we waiting for? Get them some food as well. They look starved, like little walking skeletons.’
‘Of course, my lord,’ the peacock man said.
‘And that lion. Has it been captured?’
‘It’s still at the bottom of the well, my lord.’
‘Very good,’ the King said. ‘Have the slaves build a cage, and we’ll bring it back with us to the capital. You see, Bel-Ibni? This is why I still love to come on these journeys. You never know what the gods are going to throw your way.’
The King returned to the shade of his tent, the soldiers following him, the awning closing over him. There was silence. For a few moments, no one moved from the ground. It was as if lightning had struck the boats with a boom and deafened them all. Then everyone slowly got to their feet, a couple of birds cawed overhead and the slaves with the ropes
began hauling the stone again, cubit by cubit through the mud. The peacock man turned to Aurya, his face flushing pink.
‘There’s room in the back,’ is all he said. ‘Hurry and get your things together. And you lot down there, build a cage for that cursed lion!’
Aurya bowed. She took Sharo by the hem of his clothes, dragged him back up the bank and through the scrub before anyone could change their minds.
Katya
As Katya excavated the room where she found the body, spring came to Mosul. The heat rose, softening the ground, and sprouts of grass pushed through the grit and stones. Small fox-like creatures began to hang out in groups in the scrub of wild mustard and yellow thistles beyond the dig site, letting out high-pitched yowls as she worked.
Excavations progressed in a more thorough manner now they’d discovered the body: delicate work with trowels and brushes. Salim and the others helped at her site, and they focused on cutting a clean soil profile and mapping the floor level. They uncovered wooden beams and rush matting, clay lamps, water basins and chisel-like tools, slowly building a picture of the room, linking one object to another. While they worked, Katya thought Salim made excuses sometimes to come and talk to her.
‘Looks increasingly like some kind of industry going on here. These tools and basins everywhere …’
Katya nodded.
‘That might fit with the repetitive strain we saw on the skeleton, on the elbows and wrists. The fusions we saw on the vertebrae. Always leaning over, working on something repeatedly.’
‘Yeah, that’s good thinking. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. We’ll have to get some proper analysis done.’ He glanced up and shielded his eyes against the sun. ‘Oh, look. We’ve got a spectator.’
Katya followed his gaze: the distant tree where the girl was standing once again, just watching them from afar.
All Our Broken Idols Page 8
