Kalam rose and set his goblet on the tray. “Dawn?”
“No, let’s sleep late. What time is my first judgment tomorrow?”
“After lunch.”
“And you have to return the cloak. I need to send some letters, hmm, let’s say two double hours from dawn.”
“Thank you, sir. Good morning.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
Kalam let himself out, and Ningal forced himself up and over to the door, then he thought better of it. He walked back to the far wall and sat down on the dirt floor. Slowly he stretched to touch his feet. A few more tries, and he laid his nose on his knees. The muscles in his back and arms and legs eased out, long and hard, but it took more time than it used to. He was still bent double when he sensed the movement.
She was dashing across the courtyard, fleet and nearly silent on bare feet. What she’d decided to take, she’d tied up and balanced on her head. A flicker of gold—she was holding the bangles she’d bought tight against her forearm to keep them from jangling.
He stared at her.
She froze, then slipped into a crouch and slowly turned around, peering into the darkest corners of the courtyard. She felt his gaze. She met it. Chloe looked away, but she didn’t turn toward the door. Instead she set down her parcel and let go of her bangles. They rushed down her arm with a melodic ring. She walked toward him, with the long-legged sway of marsh women, shoulders back, breasts and chin thrust out, hips moving to the left, then the right. Her hair covered her like a cloak, falling past her waist. With every step she chimed softly. In one movement she sat, cross-legged, black within the night except for the glitter of her bracelets and the white gleam of her teeth and eyes.
“I don’t recall ever feeling that way before,” she said to him. “Knowing people were laughing at me, and not because I was taking a stand for something in which they didn’t believe, or any other great cause, but because I was foolish. Ignorant. Stupid.” She picked at the dirt in front of her. “Well, not stupid, because stupid means I haven’t the capacity. There’s no truth there. I do have the capacity. I just don’t… know.”
“What don’t you know?” he asked softly, also sitting with crossed legs.
“Anything. The words they used, the terms, the concepts. It’s like I almost remember it, but it’s changed, or it’s different, and I can’t quite make the connection. When he, the lugal, asked how we kept track of fields, I—” She moved her arm to her hair and tucked a black strand behind her ear in a whiff of light perfume. Pomegranates and sesame, he realized. Not perfume, exactly. But seasoning, like the cloves in the wine.
“You didn’t know how to count?” he asked.
“It’s not like that. If I don’t know something, my mind is just blank. But this was so many pictures.”
“Pictures like what?”
She drew on the ground, shapes like—3, 4, 5, 6, 7—but she drew with her finger, and made her marks horizontally and backwards. There was no relation to the writing of a reed on clay, when the reed was moved vertically and properly from right to left. What she drew wasn’t even pictograms of old, just… lines that curved. “What are those pictures of?” he asked.
“These aren’t the pictures, not exactly. But they are part of them, like this.”
She scooted back, so he could see more of the dirt. With her hand steady, she made more incomprehensible marks. “Speed Limit 55.” “Don’t mess with Texas.” “Must be 18 or older.”
“Is this how your village counted, perhaps?”
“Then what are these marks?” She drew again, but these were straight lines crossed at the tops and bottoms, or intersected. I II III IV V. “They aren’t irrigation channels or anything. They came to my mind when he said counting.” She looked up at him. “I just don’t understand.”
Ningal looked at the markings she’d made. Her hand had moved without hesitation as she drew them, just like it had moved when she signed her contract for the lease. “How did you sign the lease again?”
“He said just make a mark, so I did.”
“Do it for me.”
She looked at the dirt, and with confidence and a little flourish she wrote CBK, linking the letters together in a way none of the others had been.
Ningal scratched his head.
“Do you recognize anything?”
“I must confess, I don’t.”
Dejected, she began to brush the dirt away. “It’s why I can’t stay.”
“Because you have your own marks, and no one else does?”
“I can’t be ignorant. I can’t not know.”
Ningal, in the centuries that comprised his life, had been many things. A barber and surgeon, a scribe, an estate manager, a fisherman, a tradesman and a Father of Tablets. In all his time, he had never seen any other markings besides the ones of his people, the Black-Haired Ones, the Sumerians. It set them apart, helped them irrigate fields and promote trade. They could write, they had a language.
He kept a list of all the words he’d ever heard, just so someone would know. In the Tablet House that had been his, on the Blue Street, there were shelves and shelves of his work. Words gleaned from every edge of the Black-Haired Ones’ world.
He’d never seen of, nor heard words he didn’t recognize as being theirs. And never in a thousand courts of the gods had he seen someone else scribble and call it something.
Did this girl need an exorcist? Or was this a gift from the gods?
“How did you learn,” she asked him, pulling him back into the courtyard and away from the dusty memories of the Tablet House. “Who taught you?”
“My father is wealthy. He sent his sons to the Tablet House.”
“School?”
Ningal was stunned, but he answered. “Yes, school.” How did she know that word? It was new!
“How long were you a student?”
He laughed and was surprised at how loud the sound was at this time of day. “From the day of my ninth birthday, every day from sunup to sundown, until I was twenty.”
“No days off?”
“Six days a month. The gods’ feasts, you know.” But perhaps she didn’t.
“And your father was wealthy, so he could spare you from the family business.”
“We’re shipwrights, and my father wanted us to be more.”
“I’ll stay here on one condition,” she said, her eyes suddenly bright. Greener than they’d looked this afternoon—in fact, he’d thought they were brown. They were luminous. Every muscle of his body was tense with awareness, anticipation. Ningal felt like a fish—strung along and snared at the exact, right moment.
“Which condition?”
“Let me go to the Tablet House.” She leaned forward, and the sweetness of pomegranates and sesame washed over him, the clink of her bangles suggested a seductive beat. “I’ll be a good student. I’ll learn quickly. I won’t cause any fuss. I’ll make my own lunch. Just let me go.”
“Why do you want to learn how to write?” he asked.
“Because, because… if you can write, you can read.”
“One would hope.”
“If you can read, anything is possible. You can go anywhere, be anything. Nothing limits you. Nothing.”
“You’re a female. An attractive one,” he said. The wine must have loosened his tongue, freed him to say what he thought instead of what he should only say. “Crook your finger and any one of a thousand men will give you anything you want, take you anywhere you desire to go, open the world to you.”
She sat back, her legs shifted to the side, her arms crossed before her. “I don’t want a man’s world. I want my own.”
“You have no desire for a mate?”
She looked to the side, her profile to him. She wasn’t a marsh dweller; her nose was too strong, her neck too long. Neither were the strength of her chin and straightness of her forehead from the molelike people who had tilled the land since Before. Skin like hers hadn’t been subject to the unrelenting sun for thirty years.
She was an imposter, this marsh girl, but she didn’t seem to know it. “I can’t answer,” she said finally.
Ningal knew he was too old to feel shut out, especially over a creature he’d plucked from the mud, what, yesterday afternoon? He straightened up and tensed his muscles one last time before he stood. He rose to his feet.
“Wait,” she said, seated yet. He looked on the top of her head from here. Light shimmered over her hair, caught the glimmer of color still on her eyelids, and focused on her lips. They were bare of paint, and ripe. I need to get to the temple, Ningal thought. I need to bury these feelings in the appropriate vessel for passion and lust, not in this child, who is the age of my great-great-grandchildren.
“It’s not that I won’t tell you, it’s that I can’t. Of course I want a mate, but… what I want, who I want, is so specific I can’t put it into words.” She reached a hand up, and he helped her to her feet. They looked eye to eye at each other; he felt her pulse in the hand he held. Her gaze was that of a woman of knowledge. He knew in that instant she was aware of how she made him feel.
He stirred the same feelings in her; in her eyes, he saw she wanted him. He felt it in her touch.
Ningal released her hand, stepped away, and smiled at her. “It’s late for me,” he said. “Sleep well, female.”
“Can I get into school?”
“It’s never been done. Female humans don’t attend the Tablet House.”
“No,” she said, her voice firm, her eyes definitely green. “Female humans haven’t attended the Tablet House.”
Ningal smiled, then climbed the stairs to his bed. For this dawn, to be wanted was enough.
Chapter Four
Good day,” Chloe said to Kalam and Ningal, as they sat beneath the shade in the courtyard. “How was everyone’s rest?”
A slave offered her some beer and bread, and Ningal gestured for her to join them. Kalam seemed surprised to see her, but he hid it beneath a simpering glance. “I want to attend,” she said to Ningal. It was all she had dreamed of: those marks that looked like marsh birds’ feet in the mud, making sense! Being able to count, to write, to read! How glorious that could be! “When can I start?”
Kalam turned to Ningal. “What does she mean?” he said in an undertone.
“I want to attend school.”
Kalam spewed beer, then inhaled, choked, and coughed until his face was as red as the border of his cloak. “That’s a new word,” he gasped out at Ningal. “You told her that word?”
“She used it first herself,” Ningal said as he slapped his aide on the back. “She knew it already.”
Chloe hated that she didn’t know what word they were talking about, but she kept quiet while Ningal wiped spewed beer off his bare shoulder and from his beard. “I think I’ll be requiring a bath before court,” he said to the slave.
“I’m so sorry, sir, but I thought that, well—” Kalam looked at Chloe, and she looked back. She refused to be intimidated by him. He’d laughed at her last night—she didn’t blame him, she’d been ridiculous—but she didn’t like that he could do it again.
“She did say it, Kalam,” Ningal told him. “Chloe wants to attend the Tablet House.”
“Oh. Is that all?” He smiled at her and adjusted his drinking tube again.
“Does that mean I can?”
Kalam’s glance was dismissive. “Utterly impossible.”
“Kalam is an Old Boy from one of the foremost Tablet Houses in the city,” Ningal said.
“It really is an Old Boy network?” Chloe said. She wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by it, but the feeling was resignation. “Women aren’t allowed, is that what you are telling me?”
“It’s not a matter of allowance,” Kalam said. “It’s that it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“It’s not done.”
“Why not?”
Kalam looked at Ningal, a little bewildered. “Female humans don’t attend the Tablet House. Explain to her, sir. It’s just not done.”
Ningal looked at her, and Chloe knew she’d made a convert. “Chloe pointed out that they haven’t, not that they don’t.”
“But, sir—”
“I’m going to do it,” she said.
Kalam snorted. “This isn’t worth discussing. Are you ready for your bath, sir? I need to return the skirt to the lugal.”
“Does the lugal decide who attends school?” she asked.
“Tablet Houses,” Kalam said, “are private, not commonwealth, institutions. Though the lugal is an Old Boy, he is not a Tablet Father and doesn’t make those decisions.”
“Although if a female human were to attend,” Ningal said, “she would probably have to attain the permission from a lugal.”
“Sir!”
“If, theoretically, a female human were to attend.”
“It’s not a theory that… can even be theorized!” Kalam said. “It’s unheard of!”
“We theorize everything,” Ningal said. “If a human is struck, we theorize how much the fine should be. We theorize every single place a human can be struck, we theorize every way a human can be struck, we theorize the most outrageous possibilities because that is what a theory is. Theoretically, a speaking goat could attend the Tablet House, if it was amenable to the Tablet Father, the lugal, and the goat,” Ningal said.
“A speaking goat would be preferable to a female human in a Tablet House!” Kalam shouted.
“I’m ready for my bath,” Ningal said, and followed the slave out.
“I am late for my next appointment due to this, this… ludicrous conversation!” Kalam slammed his chair back from his beer jar.
Chloe leaped to her feet. “I’m so sorry I made you late,” she said. “I tell you what. I know it’s embarrassing for you to return the lugal’s kilt. I’ll do it. Then you don’t have to worry about being late, or facing him. I would like to apologize personally anyway.”
Kalam glowered at her, then consulted his clay tablet, which presumably carried the day’s duties on it. “He will be in the Temple of Sin at noon. When the sun is directly overhead,” he explained. “Don’t be late. The lugal hates lateness. It’s a sign of procrastination, and he hates procrastination even more. Justice Ningal and I will be in court all afternoon.” He straightened his cloak. “I guess you’ll be here by twilight?”
“I guess.”
Kalam adjusted his basket hat and nodded at the slave. Chloe followed him to the courtyard gate and closed it behind him. A slave ran out from the kitchens. “Kalam forgot the lugal’s skirt! He left it, and he won’t be back before—”
“It’s fine,” Chloe said. “I’m going to return it.”
“To the lugal?” she asked, aghast. “Weren’t you the one who threw up on him?”
Chloe felt her face heat. But when you threw up on the leader of the people, word was going to get out, and it was going to be embarrassing. It was just going to be an experience she’d rather forget. “Yes,” she said. “I won’t be eating before I go visit the lugal.”
The slave girl shrugged. “The kilt will be dry by then.”
“Good. Would it be possible for me to get another bath?”
“Two baths? In two days?” The slave girl’s expression showed she thought Chloe was being uppity; in fact, she muttered about living like a justice as she walked to the kitchen to heat the water.
Chloe couldn’t explain it, but she felt euphoric. School was a term she felt comfortable with and something inside her resounded with how right the choice was. You just might have to move heaven and earth to get there, a voice said inside. You’d better decide what to wear.
* * *
“May I help you?” the scribe said. His head was bald, and his belly bulged. For some unknown reason he wore a kilt rather than a cloak. A cloak would have covered his stomach and looked far more dignified. Of course, it would have shown off his shoulders and arms. Chloe could see he had neither, beyond mere function. She smiled.
“I’m here with a de
livery for the lugal,” she said.
The scribe didn’t even look up. “I’m sorry. The lugal leaves the office and goes for his afternoon consultation at the Temple of Sin at a few minutes past midday. You missed him by at least fifteen minutes. Good day.”
“I know, I got lost.” Never apologize or make excuses when you’re late. Just make it up. The scribe’s expression went from polite unconcern to disdain. “But that’s not your problem.”
“I’m glad you realize that.”
“When is he finished at the Temple of Sin? You see, I brought his skirt—”
“Oh. I remember you. The Regurgitating Refugee.” He scooted back from Chloe. She fought the desire to show him her middle finger. What use would showing him her middle finger be? He had two middle fingers, and he certainly wouldn’t be impressed that she had two, also. “Just leave it here.”
“Thank you, but I’d much rather see him. In person.”
The scribe leaned forward and beckoned her closer. “You’re new to town. I know this. So I’m going to help you. I work for the most powerful man in Ur, consequently, the most powerful man in the known world. He decides if the priests can build another stage for the temple, he decides how many fields will be barley and how many will be emmer. He decides what the rate of exchange is going to be! You, in case you aren’t aware, are no one. You can’t even keep your peasant stomach to yourself. So leave his skirt, and leave this office.” The scribe smiled brightly. “Is that through your stupid little head?”
Chloe just… stood.
“And if you think he would be interested in your marshy Khamite body or sharing his seed with you, know that his afternoon meeting is with the ensi, the high priestess of Inana. The incarnation of the goddess of love, you ignorant she-goat. Now get out of here before I throw you out.”
Chloe was completely speechless and mostly frozen. He ignored her. She couldn’t move; there was no feeling in her body and just the sensation of pins in her face. As if her face had fallen asleep and was just waking up. No words or pictures appeared in her mind. She was too shocked.
The scribe didn’t look up, but he spoke. “If your stinking carcass hasn’t left this office in a count of five, I’ll have your hand cut off for thievery.”
Twilight in Babylon Page 5
