Robert Silverberg - Gilgamesh the King

I thought of her lying naked in the embrace of the king who is the god, on the night of the Sacred Marriage, which was the first night of her high priestesshood, and the taste of bile came to my lips.

She was clad in a simple tufted white robe that covered her from head to foot, with only her right shoulder bare. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and braided into a thick rope that was wound around her head. Her cheeks were lightly tinted with yellow ochre and her eyelids were darkened with kohl, but otherwise she wore no cosmetic. The only tangible sign of her new rank was a delicate coronet of gold chain, woven in the serpent-motif of the goddess, that encircled her forehead. But there were other, subtler signs. The aura of power was upon her. The radiance of heaven's might glowed beneath her skin.

I stared at her, but my eyes could not meet her eyes. I could think only of her body moving beneath Dumuzi's, her lips to his lips, his hand between her thighs, and I burned with chagrin and shame.

Then I reminded myself that the woman who stood before me was not merely someone I had once desired. She was the embodiment of the highest power of the world; she was the goddess herself. The gulf between us was immense. Beside her, I and all my petty desires were nothing.

"Well?" she said after a long while.

I made the goddess-sign to her. "Queen of Heaven and Earth," I mumbled. "Divine Mother. First Daughter of the Moon." "Look at me."

I lifted my eyes. They did not quite reach hers.

"Look at me! Into my eyes, into my eyes! Why this terror? Am I that much altered?"

"Yes," I whispered. "Very much altered."

"And you fear me?"

"Yes. I fear you. You are Inanna."

"Ah. Queen of Heaven and Earth! Divine Mother! First Daughter of the Moon!"

She put her hand to her mouth and smothered a giggle, and then the giggle escaped as shrill laughter.

Astounded, trembling, I made the goddess-sign again and again.

"Yes, fear me!" she cried, unable to hold back her wild mirth. She pointed imperiously. "Down and grovel! Fool! Oh, what a child you are! Queen of Heaven and Earth! First Daughter of the Moon!"

I could not comprehend her laughter, ringing in uncontrollable peals. It terrified me. I made the goddess-sign at her once more. She had never been anything other than bewildering to me, even when she was only a naked sparkle-eyed girl with budding breasts, laughing and hugging me fiercely in the corridor and prophesying great things. And the wily young priestess, playing mischievous flirtinggames with me to my befuddlement: I had not understood her either. But this was too much, this mockery of the goddess, now that she was the goddess. I was frightened. I shivered with fear. Silently I called upon Lugalbanda to guard me.

After a moment she grew more calm, and I felt a little less uneasy. Quietly she said, "Yes, I am different now. I am Inanna. But I always was: do you understand that? Do you think the goddess did not know from the beginning of time that she would choose my body when she was done with that other one? And now my turn has come. Were you there, the night of the Marriage?"

"I was there, yes. I stood in the front row. You looked straight at me, but you never saw me."

"The fire of the goddess blinded my eyes that night."

"Or the fire of the god," I said rashly.

She stared at me in astonishment and sudden fury. Her cheeks reddened beneath the yellow ochre, and her eyes blazed. But her anger seemed to go as swiftly as it had come. She smiled and said, "Ah, is that it, Gilgamesh? Is that what gnaws at you?"

I could not speak. My cheeks flamed. I stared at my feet.

She came to me and took my hand in hers. Softly she said, "I tell you, think nothing of him. Nothing! It was a rite, which I dutifully performed, and that was all it was. It was the goddess who embraced him, and not the priestess. It changes nothing between you and me. Do you understand?"

When you are king, I will lie in your arms.

I looked up, and our eyes met squarely for the first time that day. "I think I do."

"So be it, then."

I was silent. She was still too powerful for me. The force of her was overwhelming.

Then I said, after a time, "What was that name you called me a moment ago?"

"Gilgamesh."

"But that is not my name."

"It will be," she replied. "Gilgamesh: He-Who-Is-Chosen. You will reign by that name. It is a name of the old ones, the goddesspeople, who held the Land long ago. The knowledge of it came to me as I dreamed, when the goddess first walked with me. Say it:

Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh."

"Gilgamesh."

"Gilgamesh the king."

"That would be impious to say. Dumuzi is king."

"Gilgamesh the king! Say it! Say it!"

Once more I shivered. "Let me be, Inanna, I pray you. If the gods mean to make me king, it will come in proper time. But Dumuzi has the high seat now. I will not name myself king before you, not now, not here in the house of the goddess." The anger returned to her eyes. She did not like to be resisted. Then she shrugged and seemed to put all that we had been saying out of her mind between one instant and the next. In a different voice, fiat, businesslike, she said, "Why are you concealing things from me?"

I was startled by that. "Concealing?"

"You know what you are concealing."

I felt a pressure behind my right ear, a warning. Then I knew what she wanted me to tell her, and I feared letting her know it. I said nothing. Speaking with her was like crossing a stream where the footing is tricky: at any moment I might slip and be swept away.

"Why do you hide things from me, Gilgamesh?"

"You must not call me by that name."

"I suppose not, not yet. But you will not evade me so easily."

"Why do you think I am hiding something from you?"

"I know you are."

"Can you see into my mind?"

She smiled enigmatically. "Perhaps I can."

I forced myself to stubborn resistance. "Then I have no secrets from you. You know everything already," I said.

"I mean to hear it from your lips. I thought you would have come to me days ago to tell me; and when you did not come, I had you summoned. You have changed. There is something new within you."

"No," I said. "You are the one who has changed."

"You also," said Inanna. "Did I not ask you, when a god has chosen you, to come to me and tell me which god it is?"

I stared at her, amazed. "You know that?"

"It is easy to tell."

"How? Can you see it in my face?"

"I could feel it halfway across the city. You have a god within you now. Can you deny it?"

I shook my head. "No, I will not deny that."

"You promised to tell me when you were chosen. It was a promise."

Looking away from her I said in a downcast way, "It is a very private thing, being chosen."

"It was a promise," she said.

"I thought you were too busy to see me-the Marriage festival, the funeral of the old Inanna-" "It was a promise," she said.

The whole of the side of my head was throbbing now. I was helpless before her. Lugalbanda, I prayed, guide me, guide me/But all I felt was the throbbing.

She said, "Tell me the name of the god who protects you now."

"You know all things," I ventured. "Why must I tell you what you already know?"

That amused her, but it angered her as well. She turned from me and strode up and down the room, and grasped her great reedbundles and squeezed them tightly, and would not look at me. There was a silence that bound me like bands of bronze. I was choking under its force. It is no small thing to reveal one's personal god: it means surrenderin~ a portion of the strength which that god provides. I was not yet secure enough in my own strength to be able to afford that surrender. But likewise I was not yet secure enough to withhold from Inanna the knowledge she demanded. It was a priestess to whom I had promised, but it was the goddess who laid claim to that promise.