Гарри Тертлдав - The First Heroes

He knew his duty, which was to Uruk. She was a goddess; he should trust her to look after herself. And yet it tore at his vitals to leave her alone in this city of strangers.

He did the best he could, which was to send the men he trusted most to stand guard over her door. They would take orders only from the goddess, and defend her with their lives if need be. "Let her know what the king has done," he said to them. "Do whatever she bids you— but if she tries to send you away, tell her that you are bound by a great oath to guard her person until she should be safe again in Uruk."

They bowed. They were hers as he was; they did not flinch from the charge he laid upon them. He had done as much as he might in Aratta. He turned his back on it and faced the world in which, somewhere, the god of chariots might be found.

The king slept long past sunrise. Inanna, who had not slept at all, was up at first light. She called for a bath. When it came, she scrubbed herself until her skin was raw. The servants carefully said nothing.

When she was dressed, as one of the servants was plaiting her hair, a young woman slipped in among the rest and busied herself with some small and carefully unobtrusive thing. She had bold eyes and a forthright bearing, but she was somewhat pale. Her hands trembled as she arranged and rearranged the pots of paint and unguents.

Inanna stopped herself on the verge of calling the girl to her. If she had wanted to be singled out, she would have come in more openly. It seemed a very long time before Inanna's hair was done. The servants lingered, offering this ornament or that, but in a fit of pique that was only partly feigned, she sent them all away. The young woman hung back, but Inanna had no patience to spare for shyness—whatever its source. "Tell me," she said.

The girl's fingers knotted and unknotted. Just as Inanna contemplated slapping the words out of her, she said, "Lady, before I speak, promise me your protection."

"No one will touch you unless I will it," Inanna said. "What is your trouble? Is it one of my men? Did he get you with child?"

The girl glared before she remembered to lower her eyes and pretend to be humble. "With all due and proper respect, lady," she said, "if my trouble were as small as that, I would never be vexing you with it. Did you know that there are five men of Uruk outside your door, refusing to shift for any persuasion? Did you also know that the god of chariots has not been seen since before your wedding?"

Inanna had not known those things. The unease that had kept her awake had been formless; prescience had failed her. And yet, as the servant spoke, she knew a moment of something very like relief—as if a storm that had long been threatening had suddenly and mercifully broken. "Where have they taken him?" she asked.

"I don't know, lady," the servant said. "But I do know that most of your men went to find him. I also know—" She stopped to draw a breath. However bold she was, this frightened her. "I know that the king means no good to Uruk. He wants—needs—its wealth and its caravans of grain, but he would rather own it than buy it. Now that he has you, he'll seize the opportunity to make a state visit to your brother the king. If he happens to come attended by a sizable force, well then, isn't that an escort proper to a royal embassy? And if while he plays the guest in Uruk, your brother happens to meet an unfortunate accident..."

Inanna's hand lashed out and seized the girl by the throat. "Tell me why I should believe you. Tell me why I should not let my men have you, to do with as they will."

The girl was not the sort to be struck dumb by terror. Her eyes, lifting to meet Inanna's, held more respect than fear. "Because, lady, you know what a woman can hear if she sets herself to listen. The king never remembers that women have ears. I heard him boasting to one of his cousins. He swore by the gods of the heights that the god of chariots will never leave Aratta. But chariots will come to Uruk, armed for war."

However painful the truth might be, Inanna could not help but see it. The long levels of the river country were far better suited to the passage of swift battle-cars than these mountain valleys. They offered room for greater armies, faster charges, more devastating invasions. Aratta's king with his perpetual hunger would crave what he could gain with an army of chariots. And now he had free passage through the gates of Uruk by his marriage to its living goddess.

She did not berate herself for a fool. Her choice had been well enough taken. The king's might be less so. "You have my protection," she said to the girl, "on one condition. Tell me the truth. Who are you and what is your grudge against the king?"

The girl flushed, then paled. Inanna thought she might bolt, but she lifted her chin instead and said, "My father was lord of a hill-fort that had been built above a mine of silver. The king sent envoys to him, who made bargains and failed to keep them. Now my father is dead and my brothers labor in the mines, and I was to be the king's concubine— except that you came, and he forgot that I existed."

There was truth in that, a passion that Inanna could not mistake. She laid her hand on the girl's bowed head. The girl flinched but held her ground. "You are mine," she said. "Your life and honor are in my keeping. Go now and be watchful. Bring me word of any new treachery."

Inanna's new servant bowed to the floor. In an instant she was up and gone, with a brightness in her like the flash of sun on a new-forged blade. Inanna stood where the girl had left her. She knew what she must do. In her heart's wisdom she had already begun it, in making herself beautiful for the man who came shambling through the door, ruffled and stinking with sleep, wanting her again and with no vestige of ceremony. She suffered him as she had before, but more gladly now. Her purpose was clearer, her duty more immediate. In a little while, all bargains would be paid.

Lugalbanda found the god of chariots near a hill-fort a day's journey from Aratta. There was a mine below the fort, and a forge in it, to which the god was chained. His guards were strong, but Lugalbanda's were stronger—and they had unexpected aid: the slaves in the forge rose up and turned on their masters. The last of them died on Lugalbanda's spear, full at the feet of the god of chariots.

The god stood motionless in the midst of the carnage. He had an axe in his hand and a great bear of a man sprawled at his feet. The man's head had fallen some little distance from his body. Lugalbanda knew him even in livid death: he had been the captain of the king's guard.

The god's face was perfectly still. Only his eyes were alive. They burned with nothing resembling love for the men who had brought him to this captivity.

One of the freed slaves broke his chains with swift, sure blows. He walked out of them over the bodies of the slain, refusing any arm or shoulder that was offered. When he had passed through the gate into the open air, he let his head fall back for a moment and drank in the sunlight.

They had brought the god's horses, which some of Lugalbanda's men had reckoned madness, but Lugalbanda had trusted the urging of his heart. He had only and deeply regretted that they could not drag or carry a chariot up the mountain tracks. The god would have one with him, he had hoped, or would find the means to make one.

But the god needed no chariot. He took the rein of the nearer horse, caught a handful of mane, and pulled himself onto the broad dun back.

The horse tossed its head and danced. The men of Uruk stood gaping. The god swept them with his green glare. "Follow as close as you can," he said. With no more word than that, he wheeled the horse about and gave it its head.

The king was dizzied, dazzled, besotted. He lolled in the tumbled bed, reeking of wine and sweat and musk. Inanna rose above him. He leered at her, groping for her breasts. She drove the keen bronze blade between his ribs, thrusting up beneath the breastbone, piercing the pulsing wall of the heart. It was a good blade. The god had made it, her servant said when she brought it, hidden in a bolt of linen from the caravan. It slipped through the flesh with deadly ease.