Desert God

by Smith, Wilbur

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘I am sure you would have told me after it was too late. You put your own life and the throne of Egypt in jeopardy by your thoughtless selfishness.’

  ‘I will never do it again, darling Tata.’ Her voice choked, and she turned her face away from me to hide her tears whilst she struck them from her eyes with the back of the hand on which she wore the diamond ring.

  ‘So you say.’ I was angry and I did not attempt to hide the fact. ‘Come with me now.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Back to my apartment in the ziggurat.’

  I had prepared the draught before I went down to meet her in the stables. I had boiled the dried bark of the knob-thorn tree which I had brought back with me from the wild land beyond the cataracts of Mother Nile. By the time we reached my apartment the virulent juices had cooled. I led Tehuti into my sleeping chamber and sat her upon the couch. Then I brought the cup to her, and made her drink every last drop of the black brew. I knew that the taste was bitter as gall, but I would not spare her. Thrice she gagged and almost retched, but I was unrelenting.

  Only when the cup was empty would I take pity upon her. By then her face was white as a sun-bleached bone and her eyes were bloodshot and swimming in their tears.

  ‘I am so sorry, Tata. It was wicked and stupid of me. I betrayed your trust and I know you can never forgive me.’

  I sat down beside her and took her in my arms and rocked her until her sobs quietened. When she fell asleep I covered her with a fur blanket and went down to talk to the other two girls. I explained to them that Tehuti had been struck down by a contagious and pernicious fever and because of the threat of infection to themselves I could not allow them to visit her until she was cured.

  I returned to where Tehuti lay and I stayed by her side over the harrowing days and nights that followed. During the days I read to her, played my lute and sang to her all her favourite ballads. During the nights I took her into my bed and nursed her like a sick child until the effects of the sleeping draught that I had given her took effect.

  On the third night she woke me with her moans and whimpers of pain. I took her in my arms and rocked her, all the while murmuring endearments and encouragement until I felt the contractions of her womb commence. Then I massaged her stomach to ease the pains and to assist the good gods in voiding the dead thing within her.

  When at last it was ejected in a rush of blood and mucus she struggled up on her elbows and pleaded with me, ‘Please let me see him. Please let me see my baby.’

  Attached to the placenta was such an obscene little homunculus of slime and blood that I knew the sight of it would haunt her for the remainder of her days. I could not accede to her pleas. I scraped the lifeless morsel into my silver wine chalice and as soon as night fell I spirited it down to the stables, and rode with it deep into the forests that grew right up to the bank of the river and I buried it in its tiny silver sarcophagus at the base of a giant plane tree. I knelt beside the unmarked grave and prayed to Isis, the goddess of children, to take care of the tiny soul.

  I returned to my bedchamber in the ziggurat. I thought that Tehuti was sleeping but when I slipped into the bed beside her I found she was still weeping. I held her close and I grieved for the pain I had inflicted upon her, and for my own guilt at having snuffed out that precious spark of life which had been struck between a man and woman, both of whom I loved so dearly.

  We passed only twelve more nights in the ziggurat at Ur. By that time Tehuti had recovered from her ordeal, and her beauty was unimpaired.

  On the last morning I rode out with Lord Remrem through the city gates. Our caravan was camped just outside the walls. The tents had been struck, the pack animals were all loaded and the company was ready to set out on the last short leg of the long journey to Babylon.

  Remrem’s bodyguard were drawn up to receive him. I bade him a warm farewell. Remrem is a fine soldier and a gentleman but a cubit of his company can stretch a league. An hour with him can feel like a month. I was happy to let him go.

  I waited while he took his place at the head of the caravan with his officers surrounding him. He raised his right hand and the horns blared out the order to advance. The drums began to beat and he marched away. I turned my horse’s head and rode back to Ur with a light heart.

  My princesses with their entourage were waiting on the wharf when I came down to the river. The barges that Phat Tur had commandeered were anchored in midstream. They were decked out with coloured flags and bunting. As soon as I dismounted and embraced my two charges the leading barge slipped its anchor and steered in to the wharf for the loading to begin.

  Phat Tur had organized the crews with his usual efficiency. He handed the princesses aboard and led them to the day bed under a sun-awning in the stern of the leading barge. The pageboys served them with honeyed sherbet in gold chalices that were cooled by ice brought down from the peaks of the Zagros Mountains by fast chariots in specially insulated boxes. The girls had never tasted anything so sweet and cold and they squealed with surprise and delight.

  There was a fair breeze to fill the sails and relays of oarsmen to speed the barges up the mighty river. On the open deck musicians played, clowns clowned and jugglers juggled. I allowed Bekatha to beat me on the bao board, and Zaras recited his latest poetry for Tehuti’s delectation. These verses were not up to the high standard set by his accounts of clashing legions and battles to the death. Instead they dealt with broken hearts and unrequited passion which reduced at least one of member of his royal audience to tears, but left me unmoved and wishing for surcease.

  When we were not employed in entertaining the princesses, Phat Tur and I plotted how we could best usurp command of the legions and chariots of King Nimrod. Without Lord Remrem to slow down the proceedings the two of us were able to polish, refine and finalize these plans long before our barge rounded the final bend in the river and we found laid out before us the splendours of Babylon.

  For one of the very few times in my life I was truly struck dumb with astonishment. I realized at once that the descriptions of the city that I had dismissed as wildly exaggerated were rather understated and restrained.

  My beloved Thebes, lovely city of a hundred gates, was a humble village when compared to this shining city that was spread out along both banks of the river. I recognized many of the monuments from drawings and sketches I had seen of them. However, depictions of these stupendous works on a papyrus scroll were as ineffectual as attempting to describe the great Middle Sea by displaying a bucket of salt water.

  The palace of Marduk dominated the south bank. It was built entirely of gleaming white marble. Phat Tur stood beside me at the prow of the barge confirming for me what my eyes doubted.

  ‘The façade of the palace is half a league long from east to west, and three times as tall as the palace of Pharaoh in Thebes.’ He was delighting in my bewilderment. ‘Facing it on the northern bank of the river are the Hanging Gardens. Marduk sited them there so that every terrace and window of his palace enjoys a full view of their splendour.’

  The gardens comprised a series of open galleries many times higher than the palace facing them. The genius of King Marduk’s architects had created the illusion that they were not standing on solid ground, but that they were miraculously suspended from the sky. They were canted at an angle so that an observer in the palace on the opposite bank of the river could have a full view of every single tree and plant that covered the galleries like a forest.

  Since Pharaoh gifted me with the estate of Mechir along the bank of the Nile, my fascination with the cultivation of plants has become an obsession. This marvellous garden in the sky made all my own fertile fields seem paltry.

  ‘I love trees and all green things. They gladden my heart and lighten my soul,’ I told Phat Tur as we stood together looking up at the aerial gardens.

  ‘King Marduk must have loved plants as much as you do,’ Phat Tur remarked drily. ‘He impoverished his nation to make his point
.’

  I thought it prudent to change the subject. The ambassador was unaware that there was a great treasure of silver in the saddlebags of my camel train. An unguarded word from him might alert King Nimrod to its existence, and all rulers are at heart bandits and ravenous for bullion. I had no reason to believe that Nimrod was an exception.

  ‘How do they get water to those trees?’ I demanded of Phat Tur.

  ‘King Marduk’s engineers designed those water screws.’ He pointed across at the bronze columns which rose at an angle from the surface of the river to the highest points on the upper gallery of the gardens. When I studied them with closer attention I saw that the columns were hollow pipes that were rotating ponderously.

  ‘What keeps them turning?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘There are windmills on top of them, as you can see. Below the surface of the river there are water vane pumps,’ Phat Tur explained. ‘The river current spins the screws that are inside the pipes. The revolving screws scoop up the water and lift it to the top of the pipe.’ He pointed upwards. ‘There! Can you see it?’

  I peered upwards and saw the river water cascading from the upper end of the pipes into the gutters that carried it away to every part of the galleries below. Like all beautiful ideas it was so simple. I was mortified that I had not thought of it myself. Implementing the idea would be my major project as soon as I returned to my estates at Mechir. I had quadrupled the production on my fields with the introduction of compost and fertilizer. I could double it again by introducing screws such as these to water my fields. Of course it would not be necessary to tell anybody in Thebes that the invention was not my very own. Everybody in Egypt took my genius for granted. There was no cause for me to disillusion them.

  ‘What is that edifice standing beyond the gardens?’ I pointed out the tower of stone that was so tall it seemed to scrape the belly of the scudding clouds coming up from the Persian Gulf.

  ‘It is the Tower of Clouds, sacred to the goddess Ishtar. It also was built by King Marduk, after he had elevated himself to the status of a god. He wished to marry the goddess Ishtar. As you know, Taita, Ishtar is the goddess of love, sex and victory in war. These were the fundamentals most highly prized and sought after by Marduk himself. He ordered the tower to be built to impress Ishtar with his wealth and power; and to tempt her to come down to the top of his tower where he could marry her. Thereafter the two of them would rule all creation as husband and wife. Sadly for both of them Marduk died before the tower reached its projected height of three hundred cubits. Thus Ishtar was able to resist the temptation to descend to earth.’ Phat Tur chuckled at the ironies of fate, and I smiled with him.

  ‘What is to become of the tower now that Marduk has no further use for it?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Marduk bequeathed it to his son, the present King Nimrod, whom you are about to meet. Nimrod has neither the wealth nor the will to continue with his father’s plan to lure Ishtar down from her divine abode.’

  ‘I have heard men refer to Nimrod as the Great Hunter who has slain in excess of one hundred lions and one hundred great aurochs bulls in the mountains of Zagros,’ I remarked. ‘If he is such a great hunter is he not also a great lover of womankind? Why then does he spurn the opportunity of a dalliance with the goddess?’

  ‘I believe he would enjoy nothing more than entertaining the goddess in his bed. He has the reputation of being a prodigious sexual athlete as well as a mighty hunter. It is a great shame that the contents of his treasury do not reach as far as does his genital member.’

  I took Phat Tur’s arm and led him across to the port side of the vessel from where we had a better view of King Nimrod’s palace. The size and grandeur of the building held me captivated for some time, and then my gaze strayed further upstream and lighted on a ziggurat which stood on the river-bank alongside the palace.

  This was another vast building, three or four times larger than the ziggurat at Ur of the Chaldees where we had stayed when first we reached the Euphrates. This one was circular in shape, rather than pyramidal. The terrace rose in a continuous spiral around the main building from ground level to the summit.

  Phat Tur saw that my attention was now fastened upon it and he told me, ‘That is the Temple of Ishtar, not to be confused with the Tower of the Goddess. It is a fascinating place. I cannot describe to you the nature of the ceremonies that take place within its walls. I feel compelled to take you there at the first opportunity and let you watch them for yourself.’

  ‘You have aroused my curiosity, Phat Tur,’ I assured him.

  ‘It will give me pleasure to satisfy it.’ He smiled mysteriously. Then he pointed ahead at the throng of gaudily dressed humanity that crowded the stone landing place on the river-bank below the palace walls.

  ‘Lord Tuggarta, the grand chamberlain, and other exalted nobility of King Nimrod’s court are gathered there to welcome you as the envoy of Pharaoh and the bearer of the hawk seal. This is a show of great respect. His Majesty, in person, will be waiting to receive you in the throne room of the palace.’

  I hurried back along the deck to where my two princesses were surrounded by their slaves and serving women. I made a deep obeisance to them for the benefit of the reception committee watching us from the palace landing, but at the same time I reminded the girls in a whisper of the manner in which I expected them to comport themselves, as the representatives of the Pharaonic House of Egypt. Then I took up my position behind them, with Phat Tur at my side.

  As the oarsmen brought us in neatly alongside the landing I took the opportunity to study the Sumerian nobility waiting to welcome us.

  I saw at once that the women, even the older ones, were more comely and good to look upon than their menfolk, as is the case in every nation with which I am familiar. Their tawny skins were glossy and unblemished. Without exception their hair was black as midnight and their sloe eyes were cunningly painted. They were possessed of an inherent dignity, even the younger ones.

  The men were mostly tall with fierce hard features. Their noses were prominent and beaked. Their cheekbones were high. Their dark hair was worn shoulder length, and crimped into tight ringlets. Their long beards hung down in sculptured waves to the level of their waists. The ankle-length gowns of both men and women were made of elaborately patterned wool.

  There was no mistaking the fact that these were a noble, warlike and formidable people.

  An elaborately decorated gangplank was lowered from the stone wharf to the deck of our vessel and we went ashore, to be greeted by Lord Tuggarta. Phat Tur acted as our translator. I hung back demurely. I did not wish our hosts to be aware of the fact that I was thoroughly conversant with their language. I knew that there were difficult negotiations ahead and I would use any advantage that was available to me.

  From the wharf we moved in stately procession, led by Lord Tuggarta, to the throne room of the palace. This was a cavernous room, with a high arched ceiling. The walls were hung with the trophies of the battlefield and of the hunting field. It seemed apparent to me from this display that King Nimrod had slaughtered considerably in excess of the hundred lions and hundred aurochs bulls with which rumour and hearsay credited him. The atmosphere in the throne room was rank with the smell of poorly cured animal skins and skulls, and unwashed and perspiring human bodies. Phat Tur had warned me that the Sumerians looked upon bathing as highly detrimental to health.

  When King Nimrod rose from his throne of gold and ivory set on a white marble plinth inlaid with semi-precious stones, I saw that he towered over his tallest subjects. His shoulders were wide, his arms heavily muscled. When he raised his right hand and spread his bejewelled fingers in greeting I thought that his hand was probably large enough to envelop my head. He looked down on my two princesses with a lascivious sparkle in his dark eyes, and I could tell at once that he was not only a mighty hunter, but also a lecher of equivalent status.

  Through the medium of our interpreters we spent the next hour exchanging trite and insincer
e compliments and good wishes. Then King Nimrod retired and we were shown to the quarters which had been allocated to us in the palace precincts for the duration of our stay.

  I was pleased to discover that our hosts had recognized my importance and standing, and that they had demonstrated this fact by the accommodations they had set aside for me. These were spacious and airy rooms that overlooked the river and the Temple of Ishtar which stood close alongside the palace. The rooms were decorated with magnificent furniture made from rare wood and exotic materials. The draperies were wool and precious silk. The bed was vast in size and unwelcoming in design. I decided immediately that I would sleep elsewhere.

  With the assistance of Phat Tur I managed to induce the palace staff to deliver several large buckets of hot water to the terrace outside my apartment. Then I stripped naked while my own slaves poured the water over my head and body. By the time I had completed my bath the sun was almost on the horizon. However, the heat of the day remained enervating, until a breeze of sweet cool air began to waft down from the snow-capped Zagros Mountains on the eastern horizon.

  I dismissed my slaves and lingered on the terrace, still naked from my ablutions. I revelled in the sunset and the play of light upon the surface of the river below me.

  Suddenly I became aware of the fact that I was being observed. I turned quickly towards the high temple ziggurat that stood beside the palace. The spiral terrace that rose from ground level to the top of the temple passed so close to where I stood that it seemed I might easily have lobbed a small stone across the gap that separated us.

  On the temple terrace opposite me stood a cloaked and hooded figure. I could not see the eyes in the shadow of the hood, but I could feel them focused on my face. I felt perfectly at ease under this scrutiny, but intrigued by the identity of the stranger. I am fully aware that except for the injuries that were inflicted on me so long ago, my body is tall and exceptionally well formed. My musculature is honed by hard riding and exercises at arms. Modesty usually prevents me from employing the word beautiful when describing myself, but honesty requires me to do so in this instance.