Pretender

CHAPTER 12.

NK-2 needled his penumbra to the alternate host, desperate for more information. The host was sleeping. But the second time, some time later, he found Sargan alert and was successful. He waited several hours. Then:

In the room of the water-clock the black hood and the white faced the twinkling frieze. Amalek reported to his superior. “The matter of the pretenders has become most urgent. About the young woman…”

“Do not speak of her!”

“Sir, we must. She has been long in the cell.”

“She recanted fully under interrogation!” Sargan said sharply.

“Sir, are you satisfied that her recantal is genuine? Once the threat of torture is removed—”

“That is the heart of our problem,” Sargan acknowledged. “That is why I have not dared dispose of her.”

“Yet even in her cell she could backslide into belief. Should she die with Aten’s name on her lips—”

The white robe jerked. “You did not tell me she was ill! We must get a doctor—”

“She is not ill, so far as I know. But prisoners long away from the sunlight can sicken and die suddenly. She is an extremely dangerous pretender. We both know that there is only one possible way to dispose of such a one, distasteful as it is.” He paused, but Sargan did not respond. “Two offers have been conveyed to us.”

“Her status here has not been advertised!”

“The merchant Gabatha has ways of knowing.”

A bitter laugh issued from beneath the cowl. “I chose Aten because he is a god of life and light and gentleness. Little did I reckon, when Aten chose me, that I should be required to sell human beings to feed the lusts of such animals.”

“All these transactions involving pretenders are distasteful,” Amalek agreed. “Yet better dishonor to ourselves than to our god. The only sure way to destroy her power over Aten is to destroy her spirit before her physical death.”

Sargan had spoken similarly many times before, but the concept seemed empty now. “From whom is the other offer?”

“From the keeper of a house of call on the Euphrates.”

“Then both offers are from Gabatha,” said Sargan tonelessly. “He owns most of those brothels. A shame he doesn’t patronize them himself and dissipate his lusts that way. It galls me mightily to cater to him, particularly in this case.”

“I well understand,” Amalek agreed softly.

“What of the other pretender?”

“The scribe? He has been in isolation many days, and I have shown him the instruments of persuasion, but he does not weaken. He grows more certain of himself, not less. It is as though—”

“As though Aten were with him,” Sargan finished heavily. He sighed silently. “What of Ishtar?”

“The priestess has been most persistent. She has put her marriage-tablet on display in Ishtar’s temple, and she says that unless her husband is freed by the time of the Harvest Festival, she will descend into Hades to rescue him herself.”

“As Ishtar descended into the nether region in quest of her lover Tammuz,” Sargan muttered. “How carefully she calculates. Think you she cares one rotten fig for the pretender as a man?”

“A woman like her?” Amalek smiled grimly. “She is kin to Gabatha in spirit!”

“What a nuptial that would make!” Sargan said, smiling momentarily. “The queen of sex and the lord of lust!”

Amalek almost laughed. Then he became serious again. “She has long searched for a lever with which to pry open our secrets. In this scribe she has found it. This marriage tablet of hers bears the seal of a priest of Marduk as witness—an honest priest. She is now mobilizing her women. She will fortify them with spiced liquor, then inflame them at festival by the re-enactment of Ishtar’s descent—and then lead them screeching to batter down our gates. This would not be the first mystery sect to fall before such an assault.”

“I am aware of the danger,” Sargan said. “The wrath of all Babylon will fall on us if a single one of those holy whores is injured. Yet we cannot release this pretender until he recants.”

“There is also Cyrus.”

Sargan shook his head. “Our problem thus becomes fourfold. Two pretenders, Ishtar, the Persian…”

The priests looked at the wall, and it was as though the surface became a sparkling map, showing the rich valley of the paired rivers criss-crossed by life-giving canals. Already the supposedly impassable northern fortification had fallen to Cyrus, sacrificed by the inept son of the king, Belshazzar. Soon Babylon itself would come under siege for the first time in a hundred years. The city was defended by a series of barricades that even the most powerful forces could hardly hope to storm, but an extended siege would not be pleasant.

“Babylon is impregnable,” Sargan said. “But the Ishtar rabble rouser may use the Persian presence outside our walls to further inflame her women. I am therefore arranging to have most of the temple treasures removed tonight to a secret place outside of the city where they will be safe for the moment.”

“Outside? Impossible.”

Sargan turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

“He is here already. Cyrus. He is encamping beyond the outer wall. The bridge is up and no one is permitted to enter or leave the city.”

“So? Cyrus moves swiftly.”

“The temple and its treasures are vulnerable so long as the pretender remains in his cell.”

“We must act, then,” Sargan said reluctantly. “Tell Dishon to prepare the chamber tonight, and heat the oil. He shall begin on the pretender at dawn.” He stared deep into the wall. “May Aten grant he recant promptly. Only he can save this temple from desecration.”

Amalek nodded. “And about Gabatha’s offer?”

“I knew Gabatha as a boy. Animals feared him. He used to shred the wings of butterflies.”

“Shall I proceed with the arrangements to deliver the young woman into his hands?”

“No!”

NK-2 had picked up enough. If he were to save his primary host at all, he would have to do it within a day. Enkidu would have to recant. After that, he would see what developed. Local events—such as the coming of the Persian conqueror Cyrus—might change the situation. Should the enemy host be killed by the ravaging Persian troops…

Enkidu woke to the spilling light of a stone-oil lamp. The bars against the door banged upward and the cell became bright. Enkidu scrambled to his feet, shielding his eyes. For an instant he had a wild hope that his rescue had come at last.

But it was Dishon, alone.

The eunuch purposefully closed the gate and leaned against it, setting the lamp in the alcove where he usually set Enkidu’s meals. Enkidu clenched his hands at his sides and felt a lump form in his stomach. He felt the hour of the final and most terrible test of his faith racing toward him. His knees went wobbly. He squatted on his haunches to conceal their shaking.

But Dishon’s manner, though purposeful, was mild enough. “I come tonight that we may talk sense to each other.”

“Sargan sent you here to persuade me to recant?”

“No. He does not know that I am here.” Dishon now squatted opposite Enkidu, his eyes studying the prisoner’s face in the flaring light. “It is a waste to use physical persuasion when mental persuasion is just as effective.”

Enkidu smiled at the eunuch’s assumption that he could prevail intellectually. “So you hope to convince me that Aten is a false god?”

“Tomorrow is the festival of the Harvest. Recant tonight; then you and I will both be free to enjoy the celebrations of the city.”

So the torture-merchant was willing to pass the savings on to the client in return for prompt settlement. Strange that the eunuch should look forward to the festival; he could hardly enjoy the solicitations of the half-clothed Ishtaritu courtesans.

“Don’t you see,” Enkidu exclaimed suddenly, “that for you to take my god from me is as great an evil as for the slavemaster to take your manhood away from you! How can you dedicate yourself to such a thing?”

“When I was young,” Dishon said slowly, “I spoke as you do now. No one could tell me that I could survive without the constant favors of the full-breasted, fat-buttocked shes of my village. But now I do not miss them.”

Enkidu was appalled. Now he did not even miss them! Was this the way it was, also, to lose a god? Not only the faith, the religious exaltation, but even the desire for both? “If by some magician’s art you could be restored—”

“I would not give up the position I have now to return to such an addiction,” Dishon said positively. “No art of mine can match the tortures women inflict on men.” He looked at Enkidu. “Yet even so, women have their uses, and they are soft. Better that folly than to suffer for a god who does not exist at all.”

“How do you know he doesn’t exist! What if I denied your god like that?”

“I have no god.”

“And how long have you had no god? Were you not once a worshiper of Ishtar? Is that why you try to dissuade me from Aten?”

“I worship no god now. But if worship of Ishtar is a bar to the worship of Aten, your sojourn here is pointless. Are you not married to an Ishtaritu?”

“What do you mean?”

“The priestess Tamar claims to be your wife.”

“Priestess?”

Dishon nodded gravely.

Enkidu tried to absorb this information. She had made their sudden marriage in the gardens known, then. Perhaps she actually was working for his release. “What do you know of her?”

“What does anyone know of her, who worships the lioness? Swiftly she rose from the ranks of the Ishtaritu, for she was beautiful and skilled in service, men say. Many thousands of men she honored, great wealth she brought to the temple of the goddess. Now she has much influence. Some say she will be high priestess when the elder women slip.”

This was the woman he had taken to wife! The eunuch doubtless exaggerated, but had no cause to lie. The myth of Gilgamesh had given true warning: do not become involved with a goddess!

For what possible reason had such a one chosen to link herself to him? No one had smaller need of marriage than she!

“I see you did not know,” Dishon said.

“I see you are smarter than I thought,” Enkidu admitted. “But isn’t intelligence wasted in your profession?”

Dishon got to his feet, shrugging. “Intelligence is wasted in most professions. Had you been less alert you would never have found your way to this predicament. My first master trained me to these skills. Long ago I learned that life is easier for a slave if his master assumes him to be somewhat simple minded. So I perform my office and keep my thoughts to myself—most times.”

“But what an office!”

Dishon ignored that sally. “Ask yourself, pretender: is the evidence for the existence of your god—or any god—enough to justify undertaking torture for his sake? If gods do exist, they can hardly care what happens to a man. They will continue to exist, or not to exist, whatever may happen to you, and the world will go on as before.”

“I will think about what you have said,” Enkidu promised.

The eunuch put his hand on the gate.

“But I will not recant,” Enkidu added as the door scraped open. Yet the words came hard.

Dishon turned. “You will recant—one way or another. Sargan will not stop until you do.”

“How can I renounce my god?” Enkidu burst out. “I don’t want to be tortured—but any recantal I made would be a lie.” Though something in him suggested otherwise.

“It will be no lie when your flesh sizzles under the oil,” Dishon promised grimly. “I have seen it many times. Such faith as could lift Etemenanki itself vanishes like a genie in the smoke of boiling flesh. You will recant. I came here to spare you pain, but I go from here to ready the chamber. Sargan has ordered your persuasion to start at sunrise.”

Scarcely had the door banged shut behind Dishon before Enkidu was at work on a tablet. Both he and Amys had learned to soften the surface mud just enough to accept the imprint of the stylus, so that it hardened rapidly. They had also fashioned permanent mud envelopes impregnated with hair to set over the tablets; these did not fit perfectly, of course, but made almost immediate transmission feasible. A reply could be read scant hours after a query.

He had, Enkidu informed Amys, just received news concerning his esteemed and lovely goddess of a first wife, Tamar. Surely Amys, who had spent her life in Babylon, had known of Tamar’s business. Why hadn’t she informed him? What other secrets pertinent to his life had she withheld from her husband?

I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY, he concluded. IN THE MORNING I GO TO THE TORTURE.

He snatched some sleep while awaiting her reply, but he was restless and tense. Still the dilemma tormented him. If Aten were real, and Enkidu were in the hands of Aten’s established priesthood, and if their methods were justified, and they were determined to destroy his faith—then did that mean that Aten did not want Enkidu’s worship? Was it Aten’s will that he recant? Yet if he recanted, if he swore and believed that Aten were a false god, less worthy of worship than Marduk or Ishtar—Marduk with his corrupt priests, Ishtar with her harlots—then surely the priesthood of such a lowly god was also to be despised, and their demand wrong.

They demanded that he recant. If they were wrong, that meant that he should not recant, which in turn meant that Aten was not a false god, and—Which came first: the slave or the slaver? One riddle was as good as another.

Recant! Recant! NK-2 urged, trying to undo in hours what he had built up in years. It was pointless to have his host destroyed so uselessly. But the host had a mighty will of his own, and progress was slow, too slow.

In Enkidu’s half-sleep he visioned Aten in turn as a fiery and beautiful horse of finest breed, with mane radiant as the sun, ready to carry his worshipers to everlasting joys… and as an ugly crocodile, ready to crunch the foolish mortal in its jaws and destroy him body and spirit. Which image was the true one? Surely both could not apply…

He heard the tapping of the neat hooves, or perhaps the great white teeth. Tap-tap, tap-tap—which was the proper image? Recant, recant, tap-tap, tap-tap… He struggled awake, hearing the signal for Amys’ reply.

Her message solved his dilemma.

AT FIRST I DID NOT BELIEVE YOU. THE PRIESTESSES OF ISHTAR SELDOM MARRY, AND NEVER BELOW THEIR STATION… Yes, of course she had suspected him of being an agent of Gabatha. A slave-scribe married to Ishtar? Not likely! Any information she might have provided in that situation would have been as useful as an unbridled ass. THEN I FEARED YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE ME—FOR WHO WOULD TRUST THE WORDS OF ONE WOMAN AGAINST ANOTHER? Who indeed? Jealous claims among women were notorious. BUT AT THE END I DID NOT WISH TO HURT YOU, AND SO I KEPT SILENT. And she had accepted the status of an inferior wife—knowing that his first wife could have no inferiors. For Enkidu had married, in the hanging gardens, a woman who had given her body to nameless and numberless vagabonds of the street and who had given her husband: a bracelet.

ONE OTHER THING I HELD FROM YOU, Amys continued contritely. SARGAN IS MY STEPFATHER.

Enkidu dropped the tablet. It fell upon its face in the mud. By the time he retrieved it the final words to him were lost.

The stern but upright man who had raised Amys and defended her from the lechery of Gabatha—this was now the head priest of the nameless temple? The one who had ordered Enkidu’s own torture?

Why not? It did fit the character of the man she had described. One who tried to be fair but who would stop at nothing to achieve the ends he believed were righteous. A good father at home; an implacable priest. A man who would be most careful to keep his bricks lined straight, in a case like this. Yes, it was obvious—now.

Even so, what sort of man could do this to his own daughter, or even stepdaughter? After he had nurtured her, taught her to read, brought her into his own religion. The daughter who had known only kindness from him… imprisoned because she objected to torture in the name of a god of mercy!

Sargan.

A man of demented consistency.

Only a demented god would tolerate this.

Enkidu’s struggle was over. Amys was right. Such a hypocritical god could not be his god. The name of mercy without the spirit. He would have to recant. But not because he had failed Aten.

His god had failed him. Aten was false.

He planned coldly. He would not recant immediately, for that would be suspicious. They might investigate and discover his connection with Amys, and put her also to the torture. He could not permit that.

He would have to undergo as much of the torture as he could bear, before capitulating in such a way as to convince his tormentors. Never would he betray what he had learned in this cell.

Once more Enkidu fell asleep, this time dreamlessly.