The First Heroes

by Harry Turtledove

  The king was a man of strong appetites, as she had observed at the feast of welcome. He accepted the gifts with unconcealed pleasure, but when they were all given, he seemed faintly disappointed. That vague sourness persisted through the council. His elders haggled like women at market. They wanted as much as Uruk would give, in return for as little as they could manage. That was the way of commerce, even between kings.

  She waited a considerable time before broaching the subject of chariots. Still, it seemed she had not waited long enough.

  “No!” the king said firmly. Until then he had let his councilors speak for him, but in this he would speak for himself. “Those we do not sell or give away. The gods have given them to us, with one of their own to teach us their making.”

  “Indeed,” Inanna said, “and the greater gods have let it be known to us that their gift resides in Aratta. Shall we not fill your granaries and adorn your women, and share this gift in return?”

  Some of the council were wavering. One even said, “It will be a long winter. Our trade with the south was not as profitable as it might have been, nor are our storehouses as full as they should be. Surely—”

  “We do not give our chariots away,” the king said.

  And that was all he would say, although the council stretched until evening. When it ended, he had not budged, and his elders had shifted equally immovably to his side.

  Inanna was glad to leave the hall behind. She had thought only of food and a bed, but as she went to find both, she overheard two of the king’s women whispering together in a corner. It seemed they had undertaken to console the god of chariots—a frequent venture, from the sound of it, but no more successful tonight than it had ever been.

  “This time he was less angry,” one of them said. “He’s weakening, I can tell. One night he’ll give way—and I’ll be there.”

  “Not before me,” her sister said.

  They hissed a little as cats will, but amicably enough. They did not see Inanna’s passing: she made sure that they were blind to her.

  It was not difficult to find the god. Inanna had thought he might be still in his forge, where people said he always was, but he was in the priest’s house behind it, attended by servants who were both loyal and discreet. But they could not stop a goddess.

  When she came into the room in which he was sitting, he had been eating a little: there was cheese by him, and a loaf of bread, barely touched. He had an apple in his hand and was examining it, turning it with long clever fingers.

  “One eats that,” she said without thinking.

  Lugalbanda had told her of those eyes, how they were as green as reeds by the river in summer. Even forewarned, she was astonished, taken aback by the light of them and by the grief that haunted them.

  But she was a goddess, and his equal. She met him stare for stare. He blinked ever so slightly. She was careful not to let him see her smile.

  “I will make an apple of gold,” he said.

  “Make it of bronze,” she said, “and adorn a chariot with it.”

  “So you did come to steal my chariots.” He did not sound dismayed by the prospect.

  “I came to buy them,” she said. “We’re honorable merchants in our part of the world.”

  “Honor is a rare commodity,” he said.

  “Not in Uruk,” said Inanna.

  “Then yours must be a city of wonders,” he said.

  “We do think so,” said Inanna.

  He almost smiled—almost. She watched the wave of grief rise up and drown him, the memory so vivid and so bitter that it filled her own heart with sorrow. She could see the two who had died, how beautiful they had been, how deeply he had loved them—how grievous was their loss.

  “Come with us to Uruk,” she said. She had not plotted to say such a thing; the words escaped her of their own accord.

  He did not laugh in her face. Neither did he reject her out of hand. He frowned, but not in refusal. “Are you so desperate for chariots?”

  “We are desperate for something,” she said. “A new weapon, new power to destroy our enemies. But I didn’t ask for that. You would be welcome in Uruk for yourself, and not only for what you can give us.”

  “Why?”

  This was a god of uncomfortable questions. She chose to answer honestly. “There are no memories in Uruk.”

  She had overstepped herself: his eyes hooded, and his face went cold. “The memories are within me,” he said. “I thank you for your kindness.”

  It was a dismissal. She bridled a little, but she judged it wise to yield. She had much to think of, and little of that had to do with the need of Uruk or the greed of Aratta. She took with her a vision of eyes as green as reeds, and a long fair face, and sorrow that her heart yearned to console.

  After the first storm of winter, the gods of heaven relented and brought back for a while the mellow gold of the season that, in this country, they called autumn. The king of Aratta seemed to soften with the sky. He accepted the riches of the caravan in return for an acceptable quantity of worked and unworked metal, quarried stone, and mountain gold. He would not sell his chariots or their maker, but he granted the king of Uruk a gift: a single chariot with its team and its charioteer.

  Lugalbanda had grown uneasy as their stay in Aratta lengthened. There was nothing overt to object to; the people of the city were unfailingly courteous, and some of the young men had become quite friendly. But he was growing weary of the cold, the strangeness, even the way in which the trees closed out the sky. His new friends took him hunting in the forests, and taught him the ways of a country that he could never have imagined in his distant and treeless homeland.

  He could have borne that, at least until spring, but he did not like the way the king watched Inanna. It never came to anything; it was only a constant, starveling stare. Yet it did not lessen at all as the days went on.

  It was not Lugalbanda’s place to bring it to her attention, but he suspected that there was no need. She had left most of the negotiations to the master of her caravan and withdrawn gradually from the daily councils. No one remarked on that. She was a goddess; she could set herself above mere human commerce.

  It was assumed that she retreated to her rooms, which were warm, capacious, and adorned with every luxury. But Lugalbanda had discovered her secret: how she would put on a plain dark mantle like those worn by women here, and slip away. Sometimes she went into the city, but more often she sought the temple and the one who lived in it.

  She would efface herself there, sit in a corner and watch the god and his servants at their work. The god did not appear to find her presence distracting. Often as time went on, she would linger after the day’s labors were done and take bread with him, and then they would converse. It was easy conversation, as between friends, or between gods who understood one another. She did not press herself upon him as a woman might upon a man, nor did he seem to see her in that way.

  And yet Lugalbanda, standing guard upon them—unmarked by the god and unforbidden by the goddess—saw too well how it was with her. She was a woman in love, hardly aware of it herself, but he knew the signs. He suffered them, too, with just as little hope of requital.

  As the fine weather continued unabated, even the god tired of his temple and ventured out to the field on which the chosen of Aratta ran their chariots. His coming was a great occasion. He was brought there in a chair borne by strong young men, to find a chariot waiting, larger yet lighter and stronger than the others. The beasts harnessed to it were like onagers and yet unlike: horses, they were called, born beyond the eastern horizon.

  When the god rose from the chair, he was very tall, taller than any man there, but he stooped somewhat as if in pain, and his steps were stiff and slow. He disdained the stick that someone offered, but accepted the shoulder of one of his young men, leaning lightly on it as he moved from the chair to the chariot.

  However faltering his gait on the earth, when he had ascended into the chariot and taken the reins, his heart a
nd body were whole again. His back straightened. His head came up. The darkness of grief faded from his eyes. His horses arched their proud necks and tossed their long, thick manes.

  He did not let them run as they begged to do, not yet. Inanna had come, walking alone, dressed as simply as a woman of the city. Still there was no mistaking who she was, with the light in her eyes and the beauty of her face.

  She spoke no word to the god and he none to her, but he held out his hand. She let him lift her into the chariot. There was space for two of them, if she stood close, within the circle of his arms. She, who was as tall as many men, was small beside him.

  Then at last he gave the horses free rein. They leaped into flight, as swift as wind over the grass.

  Lugalbanda’s heart flew with them, but his eyes were not completely blind to what went on about him. They saw that another had come to see the god and the goddess together: the king of Aratta with his look of perpetual hunger. It was stronger than before, strong enough to fester.

  The god and the goddess were far away, caught up in the glory of their speed. Lugalbanda, mere mortal that he was, was left to protect them as he could. It was little enough: a word to his men, a doubling of guards for when she should return, and a prayer to the greater gods for her safety and for that of the god of chariots.

  When the god rode in his chariot, he was alive as he never was in his temple. Wind and sunlight lessened his sorrow. For once he saw Inanna, if not as a woman, then as an emissary from another, brighter world.

  They rode far from Aratta, too swift even for men in chariots to follow. Inanna tasted the intoxication of speed and found it sweeter than wine.

  He saw her delight and shared in it. His smile transformed him; his face that had been so grim and sad was suddenly far younger, and far more beautiful.

  They slowed at last by the bank of a river, out of sight of the city. The river was narrow and swift and too deep to ford. The horses trotted beside it, tossing their heads and snorting, still as fresh as if they had just come from their stable.

  “Come to Uruk with me,” Inanna said with as little forethought as before. As soon as the words escaped, she regretted them, but there was no calling them back.

  This time he heard her, and this time he answered. His smile did not die; the darkness did not come back to his face. He said, “Tell me—is it true? There are no trees there? No walls of mountains shutting out the sky?”

  “No forests of trees,” she said. “No mountains. Only long levels of land, green fields and thorny desert, and the many streams of our rivers, flowing into the sea.”

  “Only once have I seen the sea,” he said. “My heart yearns for the open sky.”

  “That, we do have,” she said a little wryly. “And heat, too, and flies, and mud or dust in season.”

  “Ah!” he said. “Are you trying to lure me there or repel me?”

  “I’m telling you the truth of it,” she said.

  “An honest merchant,” he said. He was chaffing her, but gently. He drew in a deep breath of the cold mountain air, and turned his face to the sun. “I will go to Uruk,” he said. “I will make chariots for you.”

  “You will not.”

  The king’s face was dark with rage; his eyes were glittering. But they were not resting on the god whom he had tracked to his temple to discover if the rumor was true: that Aratta was about to lose the blessing of his presence. They were fixed on Inanna.

  “You will not take our god from us,” he said.

  “That is not for you to choose,” said the god. “I have served you well, and given you great gifts. Now I am called elsewhere.”

  “You are seduced,” the king said. “Your wits are clouded. Your place is here, where your destiny has brought you.”

  “You overstep your bounds,” the god said very softly.

  “You will not be taken from us,” said the king.

  He beckoned. His guards came, shaking with fear of the god, but their fear of the king was greater. They did not presume to lay hands on him, but they made it clear that if he did not let himself be led away, they would bind him like a common mortal.

  No fire came down from heaven. No storm of wind swept them all away. The god went as he was compelled.

  Inanna stood stiff in a temple now empty of its god, with her fists clenched at her sides and her face white and set. Her guards had closed in about her. The king’s men surrounded them. None had yet drawn weapon, but hands had dropped to hilts.

  A war was brewing, and she was in the heart of it. Her three dozen men stood against a hundred, and the whole city of Aratta behind them. Long leagues lay between Aratta and Uruk, and seven mountains, each higher than the last.

  Lugalbanda opened his mouth to speak. He did not know what he would say, but he could hope that the gods would grant him inspiration.

  She spoke before any words could come to him. Her voice was clear and cold. “Lord king,” she said. “I offer you a bargain.”

  The king’s greed was stronger than his wrath. His eyes gleamed. “What can you offer, lady, that will buy a god?”

  “Myself,” she said. “A goddess for a god. Set him free; let him go to Uruk. In return I will stay, and serve you as best I may.”

  The king raked fingers through his heavy black beard. He was trembling; his breath came quick and shallow. “Indeed? You will do such a thing?”

  She bent her head. “For Uruk I will do it.”

  “What? What will you do? How will you serve me?”

  That was cruel. Inanna’s back was rigid. “I give myself to you as your bride. I will be your queen, and the god of chariots will be free.”

  Lugalbanda cried out in protest, but no one heard him. He was nothing and no one in this battle of kings and gods.

  The king could hardly contain himself. He must have prayed for this; his gods had given him all that he asked for. But the roots of his avarice were sunk deep. “Bring me a dowry,” he said, “of the riches of Uruk. Every year a caravan of wheat and barley, with all the beasts that bear it, and a tribute of gold, and a mantle woven by the king’s own women, a royal garment worked with images of the alliance between Aratta and Uruk.”

  Her lips were tight, her nostrils white, but she said steadily, “In return for the god of chariots, his art and craft, his chariot and his horses, and teams of onagers with their drivers and those who tend them, I will bring you such a dowry.”

  Lugalbanda watched the king reflect on the bargain, and ponder the riches that were laid in his hand—and what else might he win in this moment of her weakness?

  He was a slave to his greed, but he was not a fool. He could see as well as any other man how far he had driven the goddess. He chose to desist while he held the advantage. “Done,” he said, “and sworn before all who have witnessed it.”

  “Done and sworn,” she said, still with that perfect, level calm.

  “Lady,” Lugalbanda pleaded. “Oh, lady. Nothing is worth such a sacrifice.”

  Inanna looked down at him where he knelt at her feet. She knew how he yearned after her; she would have had to be blind not to know it. But it was a clean yearning, the worship of a pure heart.

  She raised him, though he resisted her, and laid her hands on his shoulders. “Uruk is worth any price.”

  “Uruk could find another way,” he said. “You’ll wither and die here, bound to that man.”

  “I hope I am stronger than that,” she said.

  She kept the quaver out of her voice, but he loved her well enough to see through her mask of courage. “Lady,” he said, and he wept as he said it. “Lady, you don’t have to do this.”

  “You know I do,” she said. “Go now, prepare the caravan. The sooner you’re out of this place with the god and his chariots, the better for us all.”

  But he was not her dog, to run tamely at her bidding. “I’m not going until the bargain is signed and sealed.”

  “If you wait,” she said, “you may not be allowed to leave at all.”


  He did not like that, but he gave way to her wisdom. He must see what she saw: that the king of Aratta was not an honest merchant.

  She prayed that it was not already too late. “Go,” she said. “Be quick. Time is short.”

  He hated to leave her. She hated to see him go. But her choice was made, and his must not be made for him—to remain a prisoner in Aratta, with the god of chariots bound beside him.

  The gates of Aratta were closed, and the guards were politely immovable. “After the wedding feast,” they said, “you may go and welcome. The king requires the men of Uruk to witness the conclusion of the bargain, so that there may be no question in their city that it was truly fulfilled.”

  There was no arguing with that, or with arrows aimed at their throats and spears turned toward their hearts. The guards’ courtesy was as honest as it could be, but so was their determination to carry out their king’s orders.

  “Do you solemnly swear,” Lugalbanda asked their captain, “that when the wedding is over, when the price is fully paid, we will be allowed to go?”

  “I do swear,” the captain said.

  Lugalbanda had to accept the oath. It was no more than his own heart had desired before the goddess commanded him otherwise.

  The walls were closing in. This must be how it had been for the god of chariots, bound in forest and constrained by mountains. Had he felt the narrowness of Aratta’s walls, and the will of its king crushing his own beneath it?

  Inanna could not go to him to ask. She was shut within the women’s house, surrounded by an army of servants. In a day and a night, in a fever of activity, they had made a royal wedding.

  She had given herself up to them and let them make her beautiful, clothing her in the richest of the fabrics that had come from Uruk and adorning her with gems and gold. She fixed her mind on that and not on the man she had taken for Uruk’s sake. She must not grieve; she must know no regret. This choice was made as it must be. She had been born into this world for such choices.