Whores of Babylon, page 17
Oh God. The branding.
But God was Marduk, and God would look in to see that his instructions had been carried out - before his household greeted their guests, Muzi and Lord Gibil.
As promised, once the porridge bowls were cleared away the cook gave Alex a beakerful of some brew.
‘What a nuisance!’ she said in falsely jolly vein. ‘What with such guests coming tonight, and all! Every manner of work to see to. Can’t have you laid low.’
‘I can hardly move as it is,’ Alex said truthfully.
‘Oh, but you must keep on the go - like a mountain stream in winter - or else you’ll lock up, and it’ll be spring before you’re flowing about again.’
He drained the beaker. In the mixture he tasted strong beer, a lot of spirits, and the tang of powerful herbs. He became giddy almost at once. He felt he was floating. His eyes wandered, doubling his vision. His head had turned into a cabbage, a numb vegetable. The rest of his body tingled, mildly on fire, and his back ached worse than ever. Maybe the prophylactic was as bad as the impending pain; it certainly wouldn’t have helped out with the whipping the day before.
Mama scrutinized. ‘How d’you feel?’
‘Ghastly. Poisoned.’
‘Oh. I do hope as it hasn’t taken hold the wrong way. Drugs mixed in drink sometimes do.’
‘Where’s my head? It just fell off.’
‘Why, that’s fine. You’ll be right as rain by noon.’ Presently Anshar arrived to escort Alex to his favourite bench, where a muscular rosy-complexioned man in kilt and long leather apron waited, with tools of his trade: portable charcoal brazier, bellows, stone jar of water, branding iron. The stamping end of the iron was wrought as a little lion’s head, identical to the tattoo Alex already wore.
A silent audience had gathered. Thessany was nibbling at her lip. Alex sat, and the smith checked the fit of the iron lion, cold. Anshar tied a rag round Alex’s head to hide his eyes. ‘In case the brand slips, if you jerk . . .’
Anshar gripped blind Alex tightly by the ear lobes. The pressure of knuckles caused a noise like rumbling wind in a deep cave so that Alex hardly heard the brand crunch into charcoal and the bellows puff.
Heat surged at his numbed cheek. A momentary awful pang, as if a rat was savaging him; and he smelled burned meat. It was over. Anshar released his ears. The blindfold was whisked away. Snakes hissed as the brand plunged into the water-jar. Mama was patting salve or mud on his cheek.
By the evening Alex’s whip-weals bothered him more than the brand mark. He could keep his cheek still, but not his back. Every time he moved an arm his back stung like a hive of bees. The cabbage condition of his head had resolved into a low-grade hangover.
He had attended prayers to show his naked scar to Marduk’s image. Now, with salve restored and with an early meal in his belly, he knelt servilely (though not serving) at one side of the dining room while other servants bustled, and the honoured guests dined with Thessany; with Thessany’s aunt as chaperone.
This woman, Ningal-Damekin, had ridden in from her country estate that afternoon to orchestrate arrangements for her niece’s wedding. Alex hated the look of her. Ningal-Damekin was tall and scraggy, with an axe of a face. Her jaw jutted assertively; her voice was a harsh if cultivated bray; she strode about the house angularly as if she had no knees. Her complexion, ruddy from hours in the sun, was adorned with sparkling purple and gold paint as though she was a beauty as well as a great, if rural, lady. Or perhaps as though her face had gangrene. Her passion was hunting foxes and other furry beasts and seeing them torn to pieces. Obviously she had much conversational interest in common with Muzi, hunter of larger game.
Muzi was built like a quarterback and wore his blond hair shoulder-length and well shampooed (that night, at least) with a rainbow-hued sweatband. Round his wrist was a bracelet of what looked like stiff grey wire. Tor luck!’ he confided to the aunt. ‘Elephant’s ass-hairs! Begging your pardon, Ma’am.’ Muzi’s father was a tubby tough with a veneer of lordly courtesy; his wife was a slight, precious, wistful sort whose bunned-up hair was silky and milk-white. She only picked at the banquet - of suckling pig, crab- meat in little baked crusts looking exactly like crabs, sheep’s brains, ostrich eggs, spiced bread, spotted partridges stuffed with baby mice, and a roast peacock, its tail reconstructed in boiled split leeks with mushrooms for the eyes. The floor had been drenched with scent. Many lamps burned aromatically. A hired quartet of musicians played softly on lute and flute.
Gibil ate steadily; his son with gusto; and Ningal- Damekin greedily, though only so as to provide an encouraging example.
Thessany, dressed in cloth of silver for the occasion, did justice to the various dishes; and to the wines - though she did not betray much tipsiness, unlike Muzi.
‘Hey,’ Muzi said to her, jerking a thumb. ‘Been meaning to ask. That slave over there. What did he do, huh? Run away from a doll like you?’
‘No, he went for a walk without permission.’
‘So you had him whipped and branded?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Wow, what a lioness! Why’s he here? He ain’t doin’ nothing.’
‘Does he put you off your food?’
‘Me? Naw. Last week I saw a wild bull elephant’s trunk lopped off with a double axe.’
‘How unfortunate for that elephant.’
‘Thessany!’ exclaimed Ningal-Damekin. ‘It must have been a bold man who did that deed.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Muzi. ‘Let me tell you all about it.’
‘In just a moment . . . Thessany, does that slave really have to be in the dining room when he looks so unsightly?’
‘Of course. He’s my personal slave.’
Lord Gibil winked. ‘I think the little lady’s trying to show she’s woman enough to handle my son. No offence intended, Mistress! I admire it.’ He burped, and recollected his lordly manner. ‘By the by,’ he drawled, ‘your repast is exceptional! The board positively groans. Is that not so, Lady Gibil?’
‘Indeed it is,’ said his wife. With her fork she hooked a baby mouse out from a partridge and placed it nearby.
‘We need have no fear of our son starving when he returns from the hunt, once the nuptials and the moons of honey are over.’
‘Aw, dad, do I really have to knock off hunting - ’ ‘Until conception, my son.’
‘That could take for ever!’
‘Muzi, are you not a full man?’
‘He is a lion,’ said Thessany promptly. ‘He is an elephant.’
‘Yeah, I was gonna tell Lady Damekin here about the elephant’s trunk.’
Thessany leaned over to address Gibil: ‘Does the arrangement that we shall live here entirely suit you, sir?’
‘Suit me? There are reasons, my dear.’
‘I’m sure there are! They’ll be beyond my silly little head. But I fancy it’s cruel to deny such an active young man his sport for very long. Wouldn’t you agree, Aunt Damekin? Inactivity might sap his vigour; produce results contrary to those required. His buddies might mock him; this could hamstring his virility.’ Muzi flushed. ‘Hamstring, yeah. We got on to that after we’d axed the trunk.’
‘I wonder if you may have a point there?’ said Lord Gibil.
‘Wow, its tusks were something else!’
‘I should feel like a positive invalid,’ said Aunty, ‘if 1 couldn’t ride to hounds for months - to compare small things with large. Indeed, it’s a considerable sacrifice on my part to be stuck here in town so long; though the two events merit it - Marduk’s marriage and my niece’s - so I submit to duty without murmur.’
‘Maybe I could just lay off hunting for a week, Dad?’ Lady Gibil sighed. ‘Son .. . how shall I put this? . . . Even the most virile buck can’t perform miracles. The doe must be receptive within; in her womb. Even then, nothing is guaranteed. It’s a fact of nature.’
‘Dad told me there was gonna be drugs to help her along. The astrologer fixed the wedding night, didn’t he? She’s supposed to be on heat.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Ningal-Damekin, with a rare display of diplomacy (or maybe she was only itching to hear hunting tales), ‘Muzi might tell us about the elephant?’
Muzi launched into a long, tall tale of derring-do out in the wild-game reservations to the south-east, where Indian elephants roamed free, where prides of lions roared amid herds of deer and goats.
Thessany hung on his every word.
Four days later over breakfast, to Ningal-Damekin’s displeasure, Thessany announced that she was going for a coracle ride on the Euphrates that morning, accompanied by her personal slave. She had dreamt a dream, she declared, of flowing water and round boats and a baby boy nestling in her arms; then she had found herself in a desert, and the boy in her arms had become a girl. Obviously a jaunt on the river would help irrigate her fertility.
‘A dream?’ sneered her aunt. ‘Who cares about dreams? You might drown.’
‘My slave swims strongly.’
‘Huh. Would he rescue you - or himself?’
Alex, now much recovered thanks to the cook’s back- salve, was serving at table; he felt moved to say, ‘Madam, I would rescue Mistress Thessany if it cost me my life.’
Thessany glanced at him with an eyebrow raised, then said to her aunt, ‘You see?’
‘Trust the word of a slave, who recently was whipped? Somebody else should accompany you. That slave is also a man, Thessany, not a eunuch.’
‘How dare you imply . . .’
‘I imply nothing. I merely point out.’
‘At the moment I am having my period, Aunt.’
‘Ah!’
‘Ah, indeed. In another week Marduk is wed. A week later, I’m to be wed, in the middle of my month. Are you quite satisfied? Or do you wish to inspect me?’ ‘Nothing was further from my mind. But maybe that’s the reason why you dream of flowing liquid?’ ‘The point of the dream was whether I should bear a boy or a girl. To do my very best for husband, father, and God, I shall take a nauseating spin on the river.’ ‘You must have a proper bodyguard.’
‘The slave will carry a knife.’
‘The slave? What incredible folly!’
‘Not at all. I’m sure the slave doesn’t wish to be impaled for treachery. Besides, Aunt, I’m quite accustomed to finding my own way round the city. You, from the country, are not. The city probably seems more dangerous to you than it is. It isn’t really risky at all.’
* * *
‘Are you really having your period?’ asked Alex as they walked riverwards; which was hardly any distance at all from Scribe Street.
Thessany nodded. ‘Father checked up on my cycle months ago.’
‘Why did you insist I have a knife?’
‘Who knows what scrapes we might get into? You can always scrape better with a blade.’
They soon reached and crossed the river road, and descended a flight of steps to the quay. A few coracles were tied up, unloading food and wine. A gloomy tunnel led in under the road towards some bazaar.
Thessany explained: ‘This is the southernmost tunnel. It leads up to Giguna Street. The trade tunnels are all quite short and I’ve pried into each one. None connects with our tunnel. Ah, there’s our boat.’
A single-donkey coracle, bobbing by a bollard. The moke’s master, and the boat’s, was swarthy with droopy moustaches; Hispanic. He dragged the craft tight against the quay so that they could board.
‘You have the anchor?’ asked Thessany. The owner shifted a sack aside. ‘Right, I want you to keep as close to this bank as you can.’
The boatman cast off. The coracle began to drift along, bumping against the quayside, trying to whirl about. The man heaved on a steering oar, put his vessel a few cubits into the stream, and hauled to control its urge to rotate. The donkey observed phlegmatically, shifting its hooves from time to time. Maybe the straw boat seemed like a mobile stable, and it was totally indifferent to the river.
The waters weren’t as murky as Alex had expected; or hoped. Visibility was about four cubits. A few sizable fish - maybe tench - idled along, gulping little snacks of sewage.
Soon they were approaching the riverside tower which served as exclamation mark to the city wall. Shading the water with her hand, Thessany peered keenly down; Alex less keenly. Something loomed below.
‘Anchor!’
The boatmen tossed the drag-anchor over the side, which was currently the stern. Shuddering to a halt, the boat tried to pirouette; held steady.
‘Down there! It’s the top of a brick arch. Can’t see the bottom of it. Can you?’
‘It’s deep,’ said Alex.
‘Yes; the first hundred cubits of the tunnel might be flooded.’
‘Unless the opening slopes steeply.’ Alex preferred to suggest so, and have her refute him, rather than the other way about.
‘No reason why it should! There it is; but you’d be a drowned rat. Up anchor, boatman! Onward. Land us at the Borsippa Ferry.’
The donkey brayed deafeningly. A guard glared down from the tower, then saluted derisively. Hastily the boatman poked the beast in the chest with a stick. The moke jerked backwards against the edge of the coracle. It arched its tail; a torrent of amber piss descended into the Euphrates.
Some distance past Nebuchadnezzar’s outer wall and the great New Canal which left the river just beyond, they landed at the ferry stage. The Borsippa Road ran right to the water’s edge, then continued on the far bank. Bridging the intervening flood was a rope along which a ferry was hauled by hand.
Thessany paid the boatman. Alex handed her ashore, and the coracle spun away southwards. They strolled back along the road which would turn into Scribe Street once it passed through the inner wall,
Thessany humming to herself light-heartedly amidst the fields of beans. When they reached the wooden bridge which spanned the New Canal, she leaned on the rail. A coracle laden with baskets of excrement was being poled inland.
After a while she spoke: ‘As a slave with the sign of the lion on you, you ought to be able to sneak up into that gallery without undue bother. Musicians will be playing; they’ll provide cover. You slip the scroll into the tekhne contraption, press a button at the appropriate moment, and lo! Mene mene tekel upharsin.’
‘Who?’
‘Old Hebrew curse; often chanted by a rabbi on the quayside. “God hath thy number, and thy game is up. You’re more of a lightweight than you think, Daddy-o. Thy power will be spread around.” Free translation. It’s a nuisance you had to be branded as well as tattooed. That marks you out from other slaves.’
‘That’s funny. I thought it was a nuisance too.’
Laughing, she slipped a hand into his. ‘Try to be invisible. Afterwards just abandon the scroll and skedaddle. Nobody will enquire too strenuously how it got there; not right away. Everyone will be too busy covering their asses.’ Her hand squeezed his. ‘Alex, I do wish it was your baby that I’d be blessed with, instead of that oaf’s. I wonder, I do wonder! I’ll probably be as fertile on the night before my wedding. You’ve already had some practice, unlike the mighty hunter.’
Spectres of dire danger flitted through Alex’s mind. ‘But. . .’
‘Don’t worry about Aunt Damekin. I’ll make sure she’s snoozing drunkenly. I promise I won’t cry out and alert the house. If you like, you can gag me. Though I’d prefer not. And I won’t claw your back. You can tie my hands; though I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘We don’t want this to look like a rape, do we?’
‘It won’t look like anything to anybody. It’ll be our secret, yours and mine.’
‘How about when the baby’s born with my face?’
‘Oh, I’m sure it won’t have a lion tattoo on its cheek! Joking apart, the baby isn’t likely to resemble you strikingly. Babies are all squashed and blurry and blobby for ages.’
‘Not if the baby is cut from you.’
‘I want your child, Alex.’ She removed her hand; a gang of peasants were approaching from the ferry. ‘I want you as my lover, Alex, my only real lover. I’m not playing a game; not now. Well, I am playing a game - but I want you to play it with me! Will you?’ ‘I’m surprised you can like me well enough after your analysis of my character, first time I visited your room.’
‘Oh, that. I was grooming you. I wanted you to respond to me. Probably I was mostly talking about myself. One says all sort of things at times. Words become a story, a fable. I’m saying none of this now just to enthuse you about the scroll scheme. I fear for you. I hurt for you. Ishtar has wed us to one another. Oh, there I go again! But I mean it.’
‘Maybe you do, as well. I... I want you too.’
‘Good, that’s settled. We’ll do it. And Alex, we’ll love doing it. I think you’d better walk a pace or two behind me, for appearance’s sake. We must still look like mistress and slave. But I’ll be a different sort of mistress to you, come my wedding eve. And thereafter, whenever Muzi’s busy mutilating elephants.’
They walked on, with Alex lagging behind watching her hips move, till they came to the Borsippa Gate and passed through into the throng of Babylon beyond. Rather to his surprise Alex felt radiant, sane, and happy. Some kind of cloud had lifted from his life.
At the junction of Scribe Street with Zababa Street, he spied Gupta walking through the crowd.
Gupta spotted him. ‘Alex!’
Thessany turned her head. ‘Is that the Indian who climbed Babel with you?’
‘Yes. He’s one fellow who could make himself invisible!’
‘Do you mean that seriously?’
‘Well. .. yes. I do.’
Gupta had observed that Alex was accompanied; or accompanying. He stared in disgust from the brand mark on Alex’s cheek, to the portions of whip-marks he could see, to Thessany.
‘Pardon me, good madam!’ Gupta sounded virulently sardonic. ‘May I have your gracious leave to speak with an old friend?’
