Twilight in Babylon (30 page)

No,
she thought.
I would never be content without sampling other men, and he is dear to me, but he wouldn’t understand. Still, wouldn’t it have been lovely to have been loved in this lifetime.

Guli leaned over, braced on his arm. “You are supposed to be dark, I hear.”

“Sumerian, not Shemti,” she said. “Then, covered in gold. In truth, it matters little who goes to the tomb. No one but the
lugal
has really seen Puabi, and when anyone does, she’s always in gold paint and formal dress.” Ulu laughed. “Anyone could pretend at being the
ensi.
Anyone.”

He touched her face with delicacy, smoothed her frown away with his fingertips. “You are of my heart, Ulu.” His dark eyes were shiny in the light and he closed them. A tear fell on her bare breast.

Ulu pressed his face against the tear, into her flesh, and held him. The drums began outside. “Take my heart when you take my body, this time,” she whispered to him. “Make love with me.”

*      *     *

“He must see me!” Ningal said. “I have waited all day.”

“The
en
has just returned and—”

Ningal drew himself up. “Tell the
en
Justice Ningal is here. He will see me.”

A half-hour later, the
en
entered the room. “Greetings, Justice,” he said.

Ningal bowed his head. How the
en
had changed, once he’d stopped the opium. Ningal had quite enjoyed their conversation, just days ago. He was certainly more than a wrestler and temple stud. The man had a mind.

Kidu motioned for food and drink as he sat on his chair. “What do you need from me?”

“The female Chloe,” Ningal said. “She has disappeared, and I fear for her welfare.”

“The female Chloe,” Kidu repeated. Her name tripped easily off his tongue—though his accent was a little different. “Your houseguest, I believe?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for your kind remembrance. I fear for her safety.”

The
en
glanced at the scribe who took notes, the slave who fanned him, the slave who poured his wine, the two girls who lounged in the shadow of the wall, then back to Ningal. “I will see what I can do,” he said, and stood.

He didn’t have the details yet, Ningal thought. “She was returning to our home—”

The
en
looked at him, and Ningal wondered if he imagined the compassion in the man’s eyes. “Do not fear for her, I’m sure she will be well.”

“Have you heard something?” Ningal asked.

The
en
hesitated. “I will send you a message after I’ve made some inquiries.”

“There are some boys, from the Tablet House. They’ve roughed her up before. I think they took her.”

The
en’s
eyes narrowed, and Ningal was reminded of a giant cat, just before a killing leap. “They will not escape,” he said.

“Search for her,” Ningal said. “Please. I will pay any cost, do anything within my power, but bring her home to me. That is all I wish for.” He looked at the young man, healthy and perfect. “You might not understand, since you are forbidden to marry or limit yourself to one woman, but she is all I want. No one else. Chloe alone.”

The
en
stared at him, the warmth in his gaze gone. “Leave me.”

Ningal was rushed out the doors and back into the hallway. His cloak was soaked with sweat, and his legs felt as weak as though he’d walked a long distance. Who else would help him? He sensed Chloe would be the last priority for the
en.
Who knew Chloe, appreciated her? Who—Nimrod. Ningal braced his shoulders and left the temple, his direction the
lugal’s
house.

*      *     *

Nimrod opened the missive from Kidu. It bore only one word.

“Now.”

*      *     *

While she waited, Chloe watched the old man Cheftu had stashed her with when they returned, silently and in two carts, to the temple. This old guy was someone’s servant, for he was gone a lot. When he wasn’t, he and Chloe played draughts and ate the leftovers of rich food. His room had no sunlight, but at least it wasn’t hot.

After feeding her again, he brought her some clothes. When she stripped, he rubbed frankincense and gold dust into her skin and tucked her hair beneath a wig.
So it begins,
Chloe thought.
This is the first of my impersonations of
ensi
Puabi. What would happen if I just stopped in the middle of the speech or procession or whatever, and shouted that I wasn’t Puabi.

I’d be dead there and then, she realized.

The old man draped a pirate ship’s worth of jewelry around her neck, on her arms, and in her hair. With careful strokes he painted around her eyes, mumbling in surprise when she opened the second one and he saw the disparity of color. She couldn’t explain why they hadn’t both changed to green when she realized she was completely herself—but they hadn’t. He continued his work. Finally, he smiled and clapped.

Two slaves entered. Sandwiched between them and trailed by the old man, Chloe was led up some narrow stairs into luxurious apartments, filled with flowers and scattered with the remains of hasty packing. “Oh God, it’s real,” Chloe whispered.

Here, in this room, she heard the chanting of priests, the clear soprano singing of priestesses. It was dark again.
I’ve lost so much time,
she thought.
My last days weren’t supposed to be like this.

A huge group of people arrived at the door. The old man draped her face. They left the palace and walked down the avenue to the staged temple. At the foot of the staircase they festooned her with flowers. Shama motioned her up, so Chloe took the first step.

Seven stages: white, black, red, blue, orange, silver, and gold. Sixty steps a stage. It was going to be a long walk.

Cheftu climbed the stairs slowly. His retainers waited at the bottom, and Chloe waited in the blue temple to heaven, at the top, on the golden stage. He was exhausted; and the day’s activities had prevented him getting any meals.

The temple’s stores were distributed now. The clients, freedmen, and gentlemen had delivered their bribes all day and night; the precious items piled up against the walls of the temple. Temple slaves and priests had dug out the tunnel to the ancient death pit. Its roof was the new pit’s floor, now matted down anticipating its new inhabitants. Other priests had worked on securing the arched brick roof.

Cheftu’s responsibilities until the “new”
ensi
took her place, were enormous. He alone would verify the women were dead, that the potent drug they took had worked. His coterie of priests would kill the animals in their tracks, leave the offerings, and fill the passageway with dirt once more.

That was when he would need to save Chloe.

At the top, on the golden stage of the stepped temple, Shama pulled back the silver-cloth curtain that shrouded the doorway. Cheftu was blinded by hammered gold walls that reflected a single candle a dozen dozen times. He stepped inside, and Shama dropped the curtain behind him.

It was a giant’s room, a room for gods, not mortals. Everything was shaped from gold; the bed was nine feet long, the chair and table proportionate. The woman, resplendent in veils and jewels, who stood beside the bed, looked like a fairy creature. Fragile, elegant, and also gold.

She turned to face him.

Puabi.

*      *     *

“Chloe,” she heard a familiar voice say. “When you go around the next corner, step into the shadows.”

Nimrod.

She hesitated.

“Kidu sent me,” he said.

Chloe almost stumbled, but gained her footing and turned around the corner. Another woman waited—a tall blonde who looked no more like Chloe than Godzilla. But she was female. Nimrod introduced her as his wife, Nirg, while they threw Chloe’s veils and beads on the blonde. Then off she went, continuing up to the little blue room for anyone who might be watching from below. After appearing to enter the room, she would sneak back down to the courtyard, through the shadows.

“Where is Kidu?” Chloe asked.

“At the apex,” Nimrod said. “But that’s not where we’re going.”

“Where is that?” she said as she took his hand. He pressed a panel, and the wall opened to reveal a horizontal slab.

“Sit down,” he told her as he sat on the stone. “It’s a quick drop.”

It’s a dumbwaiter,
Chloe thought as they experienced a controlled fall.
And I’m inside the ziggurat? I thought they were solid.
The landing was rough, but Nimrod didn’t apologize or wait; he just pulled her along passage after passage. “Are we inside the temple still?” she asked.

“Now we are beneath it. Tales from Before say these corridors run under the ground from here to the mountains. These were ancient places where the humans hid when the gods turned against them.”

She was almost breathless by the time they stopped at a doorway.

“Ningal waits within.”

She felt her eyebrows hit her hairline with surprise.

“Ssh. All the women will be given nepenthe to make them pliable, you especially. Ningal will give you something to combat it. You have to memorize his directions quickly.”

“Is nepenthe the poison?”

“No, Kidu has the answer to defeating the poison.”

“Ningal’s here?”

“He refused to help unless he could see you, make certain you were well.”

“When does the sacrifice take place?”

“Twenty-four double hours.”

Chloe nodded, and stepped inside.

*      *     *

Cheftu looked down from the heights of the golden chamber into the courtyard of the stepped temple. There, men protested the “nomination” of their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers for the “journey.”

Yet, this was the way it was done. The
ensi
was accompanied by the finest women the gods would accept. The most beautiful, skilled, successful—the city was beggaring itself of talent and funds, Cheftu thought. How could he change this tradition? There was no higher authority than the council. The list was published; it was decreed.

The meteor showers had exacerbated the society’s fears. The new star that had precipitated this whole series of events burned even brighter. Cheftu needed to ask Chloe what was really going on out there, in space, as she called it. Her nation had landed on the moon, she’d once claimed. Maybe she could offer an explanation. Someday.

“Are you going to say nothing?”

“What should I say, Puabi? You court your death by staying here.”

“Surprised to see me, I gather?”

He glanced at her. “Not especially. You seem to be everywhere that I am. This is no different.”

“Your Chloe is going to die. I let Ulu go. Some underling brought her to me. She was painted with gold and had the worst dye job. She would never pass as me. She was old, with jowls. I told her she was free.”

“How did she react?”

Puabi shrugged. “Strangely, actually. Said something like, ‘Of course I walk away. Now that I have nothing to walk to. I guess I’ll just keep walking.’ I didn’t understand. But the question is, do you understand me? Chloe is going to die.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Do you not care for her?”

Cheftu shrugged. “She is particularly talented in the bedchamber.”

“Better than me?” Puabi asked. “That can’t be! I’m the goddess!”

He shrugged again. “What happens after all of this is over?”

“I come back. I become
ensi
again, and we carry on as before.”

“How many days before you come back?”

“Rudi insists I be gone a week. To be sure it’s safe, and that the gods have accepted my substitute, and so forth.”

Cheftu sat down. “Good journey, then.”

She put her hands on her hips. “That’s it? All you have to say to me? You care so little for your position?”

He bowed his head. Calm. Cool.

“You better reconsider your options, Kidu,” she said. “You can be replaced easily.”

Good.

Shama opened the curtain again, and Chloe, dressed as Chloe, stepped in. Puabi turned on her with a hiss. Cheftu felt his stomach knot. How had this happened? “You must be Puabi?” Chloe asked the
ensi.

Puabi stood tall—though she was still considerably shorter than Chloe, and she looked puffy and pale in comparison. His wife’s shorn hair sprang from her head in fat curls, and Cheftu had to smile. They were so indicative of her personality. Unfettered and alive.

“Chloe, the Khamite?” Puabi said in her haughtiest tone.

“Chloe, yes.”

“Why are you here? Didn’t Rudi restrain you?”

“Rudi sent me up to remind you that you have a sledge waiting and a ship that sets sail on the tide.”

“You’re dying in my place.”

“Actually, I’m not,” Chloe said.

No,
chérie,
don’t tell her! Cheftu almost leaped to his feet, shouting.

“What is your meaning?”

“I mean, it’s going to cost you.”

Puabi looked at Cheftu. He held his hands out in bewilderment, a feeling that was not feigned.

“I am the
ensi.
”

“Then you’re going to die.”

“I am not! I’m leaving!”

“On one condition,” Chloe said.

“I don’t have to listen to this, I can send you into that tomb, and no one will know.”

“They will know, because I will tell them. Paint me, sit me down, disguise me however you want, Puabi. You can’t hide the fact that I have a scar, right here,” Chloe said, and pulled back her hair just above the nape of her neck. Cheftu could see the long, jagged cut, healing nicely. “You don’t.”

A scar that the
ensi,
who was supposed to be perfect, flawless, and unmarred, could never have.

“Kidu—” Puabi said. “She—”

“This is between us,” Chloe said to Puabi. “Human female to human female. I will denounce you and send them after you unless you promise me on your own life, something.”

“What? Gold? Jewels? You have the
en
!”

“A school.”

“A what?”

“A Tablet House for girls.”

“Have you lost your reason?”

“With a female Tablet Father. Mother. Whatever.”