Areshen of Isin was military governor of Ur in the seventeenth year that Ibisien was king of Ur and king of the Four Quarters.

"I, Ibisien," said Ibisien in the seventeenth year that he was king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters, "am Ibisien, king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters."

And it came to pass that Areshen of Isin who was military governor of Ur in the seventeenth year that Ibisien was king of Ur and king of the Four Quarters was told that Ibisien had said, "I, Ibisien, am Ibisien, king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters." And thereupon, Areshen of Isin who was military governor of Ur in the seventeenth year that Ibisien was king of Ur and king of the Four Quarters upon hearing that Ibisien had said, "I, Ibisien, am Ibisien, king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters," said, "oh."

Areshen of Isin, content at least for the time being with politic facades, had decided to observe a military exercise from atop the House of Dry Reeds, this one of a dozen mud brick fortresses built into the circuit of Ur's city walls. Ur's military governor scowled a moment's studying scrutiny toward several dozen war chariots now maneuvering beneath the city walls. Beer - Ur's military governor sighed another long moment, directing a measure of his attention toward the Lianuri, a small crossroads tavern a mile and a half further to the south, a tavern popular with soldiers doing active service in the field the tavern's patron gods, to put it bluntly as Areshen of Isin was wont, cheap, propitiation of the most meager sort all that was necessary at the door. How pleasant it might have been, Areshen sighed, passing the rest of the afternoon over a cup of beer in the Lianuri, the walls of Ur and the problems of the world forgotten.

Areshen glanced another moment's annoyance toward the raucous din beneath Ur's city walls, another Sixty of chariot preparing for maneuvers on parched, barren field a short distance below. Areshen glanced another brooding moment toward the city itself and the king's palace lying in the shadow of the temple. Ibisien, king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters, would be an annoying headache no matter how brief the audience scheduled for later this afternoon. Still, Areshen anticipated no real difficulties or unpleasantness at the king's palace. Ibisien, lolling with cup in one hand and his pet boys in the other, would pronounce himself king of Ur and King of the Four Quarters, would then edge questioning, sometimes pleading and pouting eyes toward Ur's military governor, would then squeal in giggling delight seeing nothing in Areshen of Isin's countenance which overtly refuted his pronouncement.

Beer, Areshen sighed - at least two or three cups before a whining, pouting Ibisien, king of Ur. An amusing little war along the frontiers a considerable distance from Ur necessitating his prolonged absence from the city would have been an appreciated diversion at the moment. Ur's military governor finally turned his attention back to dry and barren fields beneath the city walls, abandoned pasture land spreading off into the distance. Areshen watched with cautious fascination as the next formation of chariots began its charge. The billowing clouds of thick gray dust raised by galloping hooves and several dozen whirring wheels was an impressive sight indeed, a sight which must certainly strike terror into the hearts of Amuru's barbaric horse soldiers from the west or Gipul's slightly more civilized hordes from Elam to the east. The first of Ur's chariots tore into enemy lines a quick moment later, young, untried soldiers hurling their javelins with maniacal fury. A quick instant after this, however, and Areshen found himself sighing once again, this time in despondent frustration, his one consolation the fact that Amuru's horsemen were indeed at the moment far to the west, Gipul's armies of Elam lounging in their fortresses an equal distance to the east. None of those furiously hurled javelins landed anywhere close to their intended targets, stacked bales of swamp reeds sitting in the middle of the open field. One of the younger soldiers, however, managed a precise hit to the rear of a companion’s chariot, that chariot’s driver startled and unbalanced by an attack from unexpected quarters, its occupants finally ending an inglorious heap on the ground. A quick minute later crews from both chariots stood face to face angrily brandishing swords, preparing to battle not the enemy swamp reeds but each other, might indeed have done so had not the commander of the Sixty to which all four soldiers belonged rushed forward to intervene.

Areshen leaned his elbow onto the fortress walls, his head onto his hand, once again sought consolation in nothing more than a long, despondent sigh. When certain that the Sixty's commander, an experienced and talented officer with whom he had campaigned in the western desserts, had in fact prevented an untimely battle among his own men, Areshen twisted another laconic gaze about the city of Ur. The city, one of the largest and wealthiest in the southern part of Sumer, was still Sumer’s cultural and financial center even if Isin had now become the center of Sumer and Akkad's military command, Isin's Shar Dulur fortress of late a quiet and peaceful refuge from the financial and political intrigue so prevalent in the south, a refuge to which Areshen desperately longed to return. But Ur, Areshen sighed, could just not be abandoned to the barbarians from the western deserts, nor even to the slightly more civilized Gipul and Elam, no matter how pleasant and intriguing the thought seemed at the moment. It wasn't just a matter of tossing Ur's king Ibisien and his boy pets to the wolves. Setith, Areshen groaned, maintained her primary residence here in Ur. Ur sacked and his wife’s property looted would be a bothersome ordeal indeed, months of bitter, stinging invective better avoided if at all possible.

Areshen edged pondering eyes toward the Sacred Area near the center of Ur for another long minute, its temple and palaces surrounded by walls quite as formidable and massive as those which surrounded the outer city. The temple itself, the view of which dominated not only the Sacred Area but the entire city, was certainly as grand as any such edifice Areshen had ever seen anywhere in Sumer and Akkad. A pyramidal tower hundreds of feet across at its base, steps along the temple's side lead up to an entrance chamber on a level terrace half way to the summit. From there, High Priests en route to the domain of the gods climbed to - some sort of small shack, Ur's military governor decided, supposing it was

called the holy something or other, a shack in which the High Priests of Nanna and Ningal sat waiting for the god and goddess patrons of Ur to put in an appearance.

Who knows, Areshen sighed. He certainly didn't. Areshen gazed another long moment toward the constant, hectic din which was Ur's Sacred Area, priests of various order attired in gaudy, flowing opulence scurrying about in every direction, caravans of heavily laden donkeys making their way toward the store chambers, the High Priest Shubari sitting somewhere in his palace in the middle of it all.

"Counting his money," Ur's king Ibisien sitting in his own palace in the shadow of the Sacred Area's walls declared. "The High Priest Shubari counts his money and gets fat, fatter with every passing year."

Areshen found himself breaking into a soft, idle smile for another recent conversation he had had with Ur's king, a conversation which had occurred in the back of the king's palace over very large cups of wine. Ibisien, still smarting because he had not, like his grandfather, been deified during his own lifetime, spent entire afternoons sitting in his palace in the shadow of the Sacred Area's walls denigrating Shubari, the High Priest of the High Priests and Priestesses of Nanna and Ningal, a position Ibisien would himself have occupied had his divinity been recognized in Assembly.

"Shubari," Ibisien scoffed, "counts money, Areshen. The High Priest Shubari then climbs the temple steps morning and night, plops his fat behind down in the Divine Chamber, and then engulfs said chamber with - emanations emanating from his own fat behind."

"Oh?" Areshen had asked.

"He farts, military governor," Ibisien declared, reaching for the royal cup once again. "Shubari sits atop the temple and farts into the faces of the gods - farts, pops, squeaks, rattles, booms which shake the whole temple morning and night. It's a wonder of wonders the temple hasn't collapsed. If you were a god, Areshen," Ibisien had whined on, thrusting his cup toward the nearest wine steward, "a god in search of somewhere to rest your weary feet, and you wandered into your holy temple atop your holy mountain and found that every other response during the course of the liturgy was a fart, would you be inclined to look kindly upon the city? Ur will end a desolate waste, and it will be the High Priest Shubari's fault, I tell you. It will certainly not be my fault."

"Exalted One," Areshen had answered, not really certain if "exalted one" was currently in fashion when addressing the king in palace, not really concerned if it was not, "if you want to be Nanna's or Ningal's or whoever's High Priest or whatever, why not just climb on up the temple steps yourself. Your guard, after all, is more than a match for Shubari's. As soon as the gods show up, tell them that Areshen of Isin recommends you for the job."

Areshen couldn't help but smile again as he remembered the king's shudder, the long pull Ibisien had taken from his cup.

"The idea, military governor," Ibisien had then belched, "is to have my fat behind placed on top of the temple, not have the gods burn the temple down."

Areshen glanced again toward Ibisien's palace, then toward the Sacred Area's fortress like walls rising just beyond, the flat toped temple with its little house for visiting gods stuck on top, and Areshen couldn't restrain another moment's soft, irreverent chuckle. If Nanna and Ningal ever did decide to put in an appearance in the Holy Chamber atop Ur's temple, he was going to be in big trouble.

"Your only hope," the king enjoyed informing him, "is that Nanna and Ningal will be as drunk as you usually are, military governor. It still, however, might be to your advantage to absent yourself from Ur for the time being, perhaps a small war or two in the western desserts with the Amuru, somewhere where the gods cannot find you."

Areshen glanced a final long minute toward the military exercises progressing on the open plain beneath the city walls, another Sixty of chariot launching a furious charge against the stacked bales of swamp reeds. Deciding that the swamp reeds would be quite justified proclaiming themselves the victors, Areshen finally pushed himself along the walls' walkway, then toward the steps which led down into the fortress' interior. Descending finally into the shadows, Areshen made his way across the fortress' courtyard, this surrounded on all sides by long lines of storerooms and soldier's quarters. The fortress' interior walls were in many places in desperate need of repair, plaster and the occasional mud brick from which the fortress had been constructed laying in crumbling heaps on the ground. Areshen was quite aware, however, that the garrison commander was not to blame for the fortress' condition. Ur's Nanna and Ningal were gods with voracious appetites, Areshen sighed, wondering if their bellies were as huge as Shubari's, the High Priest who fed them every morning and night. Areshen, over the twenty year course of his military career, had been assigned to garrisons in cities all across Sumer and Akkad, had been military governor of a number of those cities over the past ten years. None of the resident gods in most other cities seemed to eat as much as the gods with which Ur had been - Areshen would like to have said cursed, decided as quickly not to press his luck. He'd never actually seen anyone struck by lightning, but he'd heard of it often enough.

How, Areshen dared ask himself, however, could so much grain and standing meat and silver and gold pass through the Gate of Judgment into the Sacred Area and then just disappear? Throughout the day solid processions of porters and donkey caravans wound their way through the streets of Ur toward the Sacred Area. A hundred Scribal Priests sat at table across the Sacred Area's Great Court of Nanna meticulously recording the wealth of Ur and it's surrounding farm villages as it was carried through the Gate of Judgment into the temple precinct. And still, the garrison commander of a wall fortress could not afford plaster for the fortress walls?

Areshen shrugged, decided he'd ask this same question of Ur's king during his audience scheduled for later this afternoon, would do so whether or not Ibisien was well fortified by the royal cup. Areshen finally walked from the courtyard into one of the small chambers beneath the fortress walls. Meshduri, garrison commander, sat at a table beneath the chamber's single window through which daylight entered from the courtyard.

"Military governor," Meshduri mumbled in distracted greeting, lifted a damp cloth from a basin next to his table, rubbed the cloth with energetic fury across the small clay writing tablet sitting on the table in front of him. Areshen broke into an amused smile as he watched this act of mischief from a corner of his eye, lifted the god from its niche in the chamber's far wall, tossed it onto the floor, then lowered himself into the niche, not really all that uncomfortable a seat.

"Tudith is watching you, Meshduri," Areshen chuckled as he nodded toward the god laying on the floor. Meshduri shot a distracted glance up from his work, rubbed furiously away at the stubborn tablet in front of him, a provisions voucher of some sort, Areshen suspected. A temple or palace scribe caught doing that which the garrison commander of Ur's walls was now doing might loose the offending hand if he was lucky, his head if he was not.

"Tudith," Meshduri finally stated as he nodded toward the god lying at Areshen's feet, "has been in a remarkably lenient mood of late, has not had a great deal to say about anything in quite some time. Haven't, for that matter, heard a peep out of him in weeks."

Areshen returned a soft chuckle as he watched Meshduri lift the tablet in order to examine the erasure, then a reed stylus in order to forge a new line where the old one had been obliterated.

"Do I want to know what you are writing, Meshduri?" Areshen asked.

"No, military governor of all the king's armies, you most certainly do not," and Meshduri bent to his work.

Areshen could not suppress another soft chuckle, both for Meshduri's use the title he used when in Ur, as well as for the expression of intense concentration now in Meshduri's features as he inexpertly though carefully inscribed the new line of characters onto the tablet. More than likely the tampering was well intentioned, probably an attempt to extort extra rations of grain for the men in his command from the High Priest Shubari's and the Sacred Area's well stuffed granaries. Mischief of the sort was quite in character for Meshduri, was typical of garrison commanders in cities all across Sumer and Akkad. Areshen himself had lifted many a damp cloth over writing tablets during the course of his career.

"There," Meshduri finally exclaimed as he lifted the tablet in careful inspection, a mischievous smile settling into his features. "I should have continued my studies and gone on to the priesthood instead of wasting myself in a military career, Areshen. Perhaps today I would be Shubari's chief scribe sitting in a temple palace drinking wine and listening to Shubari's farts echo off the temple walls."

"Perhaps," Areshen chuckled, then jerked a thumb in the air toward the chamber's southern wall. Meshduri lowered the tablet to the table with a long, despondent sigh.

"That bad?" Meshduri asked.

"One of the throwers nailed one of our own chariots. I would commend the young fellow's aim had I thought the target intentional. Had the javelin drawn blood I might have stood and applauded, so beautiful was the sight."

"I doubt the target was intentional," Meshduri continued, nodding toward the south himself. "You were watching Atiduru's new babies, sweet young things their tongues still wet with mother's milk. They've had no time to make enemies among themselves which must be dispatched in training accidents," and again Meshduri released a long, pondering sigh. "The target was not intentional, Areshen. And Atiduru, you can rest assured, will discipline the thrower all the more severely for the fact."

"Is it my imagination," Areshen asked as he leaned further into the wall niche, resting his feet on the god laying on the floor, "or are these children different than we were at their age?"

"I spend most of my time these days contemplating new ways to pry provisions from fat Shubari, hoping he's sitting on top of the temple farting while I'm raiding his granaries. I have little time to spend personally with my sweet young darlings in the field. Atiduru has not changed, however, the same ugly cuss he's always been. He'll wean his pretty little rabble soon enough."

"Judging by what I just saw, Meshduri, Atiduru is going to have his hands full. I swear these children are different today. You and I played with little toy javelins when we were boys. When was the last time you saw a boy chasing his nurse along Ur's streets with his little toy javelin giving her a good jab in the ass?"

Meshduri gave way to a moment's mirthful laughter, settling then into brooding quiet when he continued.

"They're all emulating Ibisien today, I suppose."

"I suppose," Areshen sighed. Ur's king, attired in flowing magnificence and adorned with a pound or two of cosmetics and polish of every costly sort, had probably never touched a javelin, toy or other, in his life. Twenty years ago, twelve and thirteen year old boys on the streets of Ur strutted, their attire utilitarian simplicity, most boasting of the commissions they would one day earn in Sumer's armies. Today most boys wafted along with dainty and elegant step, fawning over each other, each, it seemed, another Ibisien weighed down in perfume and polish, many of them, Areshen suspected, Ibisien's personal pets fondled, fretted over, and eventually debauched in one of the palace's back chambers.

"Atiduru," Meshduri continued, nodding again toward the south and the Six Hundred commander in question, "is still confident that he can make soldiers of the majority of them. When he falls to his knees and prays in despair to Tudith, then I will worry."

Sighing brooding amusement, Areshen rolled the god face down on the floor.

"When that happens, I want him relieved."

"Quite," Meshduri agreed. "What, to continue with dainty and delicate matters, does Ibisien have to say these days?"

"I see him later this afternoon. Gipul," king of Elam to the east and a perennial adversary, though since the time of Ibisien's grandfather a tributary of Ur, "has sent the king another daughter, a rather beautiful one, the harem master tells me. You can be certain that Gipul has done something which he fears will annoy me. Gipul is hoping that Ibisien will be distracted by the new addition to his harem."

"He won't be, of course."

"Certainly not by the girl's beauty, perhaps by her cost, particularly should that cost equal a cask or two of his favorite wine. Anyway, I suppose I should scrounge a Six Hundred or two from somewhere and take a ride up to Elam, see what Gipul is up to. Want to come?"

"Tempting," Meshduri answered. "It's been a long time since I've seen service in the field, longer still since I've seen the east," a moment's intrigue in Meshduri's features, frowning resignation, however, a quick moment later. "But I can't, Areshen, not at least in good conscience. Who will keep Nanna and Ningal from eating too much if I'm not here? Who but me can raid fat Shubari's temple granaries? Every soldier on Ur's walls will starve if I turn my back."

"You're probably right," Areshen answered with an easy smile toward an old friend he genuinely admired. "By the way, the military governorship of Lagash is vacant, and the civil governor is pressing me for someone Akkadian, or at least partly Akkadian. Your grandmother was from Akkad, was she not?"

"That's why I'm so beautiful," Meshduri laughed. "I could be another Ibisien, at least one of his pets."

"Quite," Areshen groaned, rolling his eyes. "If you want Lagash, you can have it. The last thing we need is any more ethnic problems there. Tell the Akkadians you're Akkadian, and Sumer that you're Sumer."

"I'll be rubbing words off tablets all day long keeping that ruse going."

"Well, think about it, Meshduri. It would be one less problem for me having someone in Lagash I could trust."

Meshduri nodded, appreciation in his eyes. Areshen had known Meshduri for twenty years now, did indeed trust him. He and Meshduri had first met when they had laid aside their reed pens and writing tablets in order to accept commissions in the army, two young officers who for the first few months had all but been led about by the hand by their Sixty's First Soldiers, grizzled, thick necked professionals who lived their lives in the dirt next to their men.

"Where are you?" Meshduri asked, and Areshen emerged from his reverie.

"Walking into my first military camp, writing clay still on my hands," Areshen shuddered, smiled when he noticed as obvious a shudder course through Meshduri's body. Meshduri and every other officer in the armies of Sumer and Akkad had lived the same experience. "I got old Saran, you know."

"I know," Meshduri shuddered again.

"Saran was Akkadian, twenty feel tall, almost as large around, the chest, not the stomach. I felt like a bug crawling into camp. 'Welcome, you sir,' Saran said. Have you ever heard twenty catapults fired simultaneously, Meshduri? That's what Saran's 'welcome, young sir' sounded like. After I picked myself up from the ground, Saran showed me around the camp, three squad of short sword, one of pike, each man just a slightly less ugly version of Saran himself, all of whom, I was certain, thought me incapable of finding my way to the latrine without my nurse. I almost crawled back to school and my writing tablets that same night."

"I saw old Saran a month ago, just as ugly as ever as he praised your name to the gods. He still talks of Ekluru."

"Does he?" Areshen chuckled, remembering the battle in which he had taken a sword into his own hands when his Sixty had been surrounded by Amuru horsemen.

"Officers," the Six Hundred's High Priest had shouted into Areshen's face after the battle, "do not lift swords into their own hands like common soldiers, particularly an officer who still looks like he could find a place in the king's harem. When you're older," the High Priest had bellowed, "you may, though I doubt it, give orders and direct battles. Until then, you'll stand on a hill and look like a beautiful virgin for your men to protect, not act like a fool and destroy Holy Order."

Old Saran and the men of his Sixty, however, had accepted their new officer far sooner than was normally the case, despite the fact that that officer had endangered the course of the battle by tampering with Holy Order.

"Saran," Meshduri continued, "said something quite extraordinary, extraordinary for him, at least. He's from Uruk, you know, not particularly or fanatically devout in his worship of Innana. Still, he's wary of doing anything which would intentionally and flagrantly disrupt Holy Order. So I asked him if he thought the current high military governor of Ur a danger to Holy Order. 'You is trying to trick me up, isn't you, sir, you and your officer's ways,' Saran answered. He kicked dust toward the front door of his house, the way old ladies still chase demons away in Uruk, I suppose, then leaned forward in whisper. 'Areshen,' Saran then informed me, 'is one of them there peculiar exceptions to Holy Order. The gods can't find him, and the demons can't get a hold of him. You might say he's outside Holy Order. So,' Saran concluded, 'Areshen can get away with things which would piss off the gods if anyone else did it.'"

"Perhaps that is why I was not struck down by lightning at Ekluru," Areshen chuckled as he pushed himself to his feet and set Tudith back into the wall niche. "The fact that the High Priest could not explain to the military governor why I was not struck down by lightning was the only thing that saved me, you know."

Meshduri rose from the table and reached for Areshen's hand, their embrace speaking intimate, welcome friendship as they stood at the chamber's door a final long moment.

"Are you happy, Areshen?" Meshduri asked, quite aware that Areshen was never really happy when duty required his presence in Ur.

"I'll be happier, I suppose, if I am indeed so fortunate as to escape Ur at the head of an army. With luck, Gipul's and Elam's transgressions will have been provocative in the extreme, and I will spend the summer campaigning in the east."

"Ibisien will want to tag along."

Of course, Areshen sighed. Ur's king would whine incessantly until Areshen relented. He would be a nuisance, though not an insurmountable obstacle.

"A month, perhaps," Areshen continued, "to build Ibi a palace sufficient for his wine stewards, his harem, and his pet boys. Once Ibi's safely tucked away behind the palace walls, he will spend his time trading wives for wine, posing for the portrait carvers. Campaigning, Ibisien is his father's son rather than his grandfather's grandson. He seldom concerns himself with the conduct of the war until it is time for him to stand on the victory platform and listen to the High Priests proclaim his heroism and brilliance in that war's conduct. All and all, Ibi is the ideal king, Meshduri."

"Quite," Meshduri agreed with an easy smile and a final embrace of his hand to Areshen's.

Areshen walked from the chamber back into the fortress's courtyard, then toward the gate room which led through the walls into the city. A life sized Tinruduri, Tudith's older brother or some such, guarded the fortress from his niche in the gate room's walls. Areshen offered Tinruduri the pretense of a gesture of obeisance, doubted, however, that anyone in immediate sight would have been scandalized to any great extent had he entirely ignored another god who never seemed to have a great deal of anything to say. Two young soldiers, typical of Ur's, their expressions only slightly more alert than the god's, at least corrected their posture as Areshen walked past.

They move a bit more quickly than the statue, Areshen sighed as he climbed down the outer steps, then stood for a short moment gazing up and down crowded city street. Narrow, less than three paces wide in most places, this street was not unlike most others in Ur. Born and raised in Sannu, a small farm village a half day's quick march to the north of Ur, city streets still seemed oppressively confining to Areshen. The solid, monotonous walls of mud brick buildings lined both sides of the street as far as he could see, most structures one story in height in this part of Ur. Portals at intervals along the street led into small, unadorned entrance chambers which in turn gave access to interior courtyards.

Areshen waited for a small caravan of heavily laden donkeys to pass, then pushed himself onto the street, walking north. Most of the residents in this part of the city were still Sumerian. Areshen glanced down one of a multitude of blind alleys along the street, this particular one an Akkadian enclave into which few Sumerians would dare venture. Idle youths, many of whom were probably servants absent without permission from wealthy Sumerian households, scowled from the alley toward the better dressed passers by walking along the street. These, Areshen sighed, were Ibisien's and the city's problem, not his or the army's.

A short minute later, Areshen approached a small market square perhaps twenty paces from edge to edge. As crowded as the street itself, small shops and taverns fronted all four walls of the square, entrance to which was gained through an arched portal from the street. Areshen stood at the portal for another quick moment glancing toward one of the taverns, allowed a brief image of Setith's features to float about the edges of his mind, and then without a great deal of further debate walked quickly and purposefully across the market square toward the tavern. Setith, a very beautiful woman, was a wife Areshen genuinely loved, most of the time, at least, though Setith of late was a bit easier to take after he had paid sufficient, even generous reverence to one or two of the local beer gods who in this particular market square were quite as generous in return.

"Heluth," Areshen nodded with an easy smile as he approached the tavern's door and a very attractive tavern mistress leaning at the serving board propped across the doorway. Naked save for a small waist cloth, a young tavern mistress' answering smile was the sultry mischief it always was, her posture a writhing, enticing dance, a flash of her eyes toward a small chamber at the rear of the tavern.

"Just - just a cup today, Heluth," Areshen sighed, deciding there just wasn't time for more.

"Of course, military governor," Heluth answered, reaching for the small silver piece from Areshen's hand and setting it on a scale just to make certain. "Sethurisu is pleased, military governor," Heluth stated as she nodded toward the tavern's god sitting in his wall niche, then reached for a pitcher and cup from a table just inside the tavern's door.

"Sethur -?" Areshen asked as he reached for his beer, nodding toward the current beer god's predecessors stacked in a row against the tavern's rear wall.

"It was revealed to me last night, military governor, that Cuthi can no longer be the Divine Lady of my tavern," Heluth's voice grave and solemn as she intoned the current tavern God's liturgy. "It came, military governor, to pass, that Cuthi," the goddess Sethurisu had displaced, probably because Cuthi had not been attracting customers to the tavern in sufficient number, "was bathing in the river down by the docks when Ningal descended the temple steps in order to bathe in the river as well. 'Cuthi,' Ningal said when she noticed that Cuthi had large attributes, 'you have large attributes, Cuthi.' Cuthi answered, 'yes, I have large attributes. I have indeed been blessed with large attributes.' Then Ningal said, 'yes, you have indeed been blessed with large attributes. Indeed, they are enormous attributes, Cuthi. Because of the enormity of your attributes Cuthi,' Ningal then pronounced, 'you can no longer be the Divine Lady of beer for Heluth in Shensulith Square. You have inflamed my jealousy, Cuthi, because you have such enormous attributes. What would happen if my husband descended from the temple in order to bathe here in the river? What would happen if Nanna were thirsty for beer and he saw how enormous your attributes are? Then you, Cuthi, with your enormous attributes, would be the temple goddess instead of me, Ningal, and I might find myself nothing more than a common beer goddess. Sethurisu, therefore, shall be the god of beer for Heluth in Shensulith Square.' And thereupon Ningal drove Cuthi from the city of Ur because Cuthi had been blessed with enormous attributes. This, military governor, was revealed to me, Heluth, in vision, as I lay sleeping on my bed last night," and Heluth shook her head vigorously toward several elderly matrons who had paused near the tavern's door long enough to listen to the liturgy's recitation.

"Then what will happen, Heluth," Areshen chuckled with a mischievous grin, "if Seth - Sheth - whatever," and Areshen nodded again toward the tavern's reigning god, "if this fellow has a roving eye himself. And Sheth - the old fellow's not that bad looking, you know, Heluth. Goddesses will be flocking around him like flies."

"Areshen," Heluth protested as she leaned closer, "you cost me another god or goddess every time you visit."

"I -?"

"Yes, Areshen. It was at your suggestion that Cuthi take a swim down by the river in order to display her large attributes and attract more customers to the tavern," a suggestion which had obviously not proven profitable. Areshen little doubted, however, that Heluth's anger was affected. The sultry and pleading gleam in Heluth's eyes communicated just the opposite as she grasped his arm in gentle, fondling embrace. "I shall go completely out of business, Areshen, because you have driven all my gods and goddesses away with your blasphemies. I shall have no choice but to sell myself into your household," her hand an obvious and pleading caress to his arm.

"Heluth, I'm just a poor soldier," Areshen answered.

"A poor soldier," she chuckled, even a tavern mistress in Ur's Shensulith Square eminently aware that Ur's military governor, beyond the walls of Ur, was something a great deal more than just a poor soldier. "Be that so, Areshen, I don't eat much. I would stay in your own chambers and out of Setith's way. And I'm - pretty, am I not, Areshen?" a young tavern mitress' dance yet again writhing, enticing display.

"Well, Heluth, give - ah?" and Areshen nodded again toward the new tavern god in his wall niche, "give the old boy a chance to prove himself first. Who knows, perhaps he'll turn out to be a match for Nanna. Then Ur's new patron will be your beer god, Heluth, which would please me just fine. In that case, I will be your military governor, and the king will be envious of you instead of the High Priest Shubari."

"In that case, Areshen, I shall order you to divorce Setith and marry me."

Areshen chuckled in easy humor, grasped the girl's hand in gentle warmth for another long moment. He little doubted that Heluth's frequent expressions of affection for him were genuine. If Heluth had been seeking wealth, she would be pursuing one of the High Priests in the Sacred Area's temple palaces or some rich private merchant, individuals who could far more readily afford to keep both wife and concubines. And Heluth, Areshen feeling another twinge of vanity for the girl's attention, was far and away one of the most beautiful of that multitude of tavern priestesses who sold their wares (and themselves if the tavern's patron deity was pleased with the proffered offering) in small shops throughout the city. Areshen grasped Heluth's hand again, exchanged a final though intimate smile.

"Maybe - maybe soon, Heluth," he sighed, chuckled in gentle amusement for genuine delight in the girl's eyes and yet another exotic little dance of enticing display.

Areshen passed another long minute dividing his attention between his cup and the crowds flowing from shop to shop across the market square, gazing with idle interest toward a scene not far different than might be found in any other city across Sumer and Akkad. Many faces here in Ur's Shensulith Square were Akkadian, young and pretty servants owned by wealthy Sumerian matrons, servants sent to the market square because they were capable of carrying the heaviest loads. The scene was not that different, Areshen decided, than it had been in Sannu where as a boy he had tormented the village's sour old matrons with his little toy javelin. Here in Ur’s Shensulith Square, however, a hundred inviting targets presented themselves, some of them young, round and firm, others wide and perfect for a younger boy trying to perfect his aim. A hundred targets everywhere he looked, Areshen sighed with disgust, and not one of them under attack. What on earth was wrong with Ur's younger generation? He must, he decided, discuss this perverse and appalling situation with Ur's king during his audience scheduled for later this afternoon.

"Boys painted like girls, not a javelin to be seen," Areshen had groaned during his last visit to Ibisien's palace. "If this is what Ur's younger generation is to be, I should be pleased to abandon the lot to the barbarians. Perhaps to Gipul and his horde. Gipul lives to plunder and pillage, rapes if he can find nothing else to amuse him."

"Oh?" Ibisien had answered, that which Areshen could only call sultry anticipation in Ibisien's features, features painted and polished for more delicately than any of a hundred wives Ibisien had ignored ever since he had ascended the throne. "Rapes, does Gipul? I wonder if he does so - indiscriminately."

Areshen turned his attention to a small group of junior priests in front of another tavern on the other side of the square, their robes identifying them as members of the Sacred Area's temple of Nanna and Ningal. Most of these young priests stumbled about in varying degrees of mirthful intoxication. Areshen watched with idle interest as two engaged in conversation with a pair of market prostitutes, these entirely naked, not quite as attractive as the Sacred Area's Holy Prostitutes patronized by the wealthier High Priests, though market and wall prostitutes were well within the means of younger priests. A quick minute later a price had obviously been negotiated, two of the young junior priests stumbling from the square in riotous laughter, the prostitutes all but holding them to their feet.

The temple, Areshen decided as he once more lifted his cup, certainly seemed an easier life than the army, or so he supposed, remembering youthful conversations in which fellow students had thought him a relic from another age for abandoning the higher level studies of the priesthood in favor of a military career. No one, they'd proclaimed, goes into the army any more. The way to the top is the temple and the High Priest Shubari. Ibisien, the palace, the army - all passé. Perhaps, but Areshen could not have imagined spending his life sitting at table in the Sacred Area counting sheep and goats and sacks of grain as they were carried into the vaults lining the Great Court. And besides, it's a trivial matter, Areshen had informed the young critics who had questioned his decision to leave school, but I find it difficult to maintain a pious attitude of reverence toward the gods for more than brief and fleeting moments. What in the name of the gods, the aspiring young priests and scribes with whom Areshen had studied had asked in amaze, do the gods have to do with anything? Perhaps a foolish question indeed, Areshen decided as he set his empty cup on the serving board and directed a final quick smile toward Heluth now reciting the beer god's liturgy to another customer.

Areshen's house lay only another few hundred feet further north from Shensulith Square, though as usual his progress was a time consuming ordeal, everyone in a dense, hurrying crowd competing for narrow paths which avoided the worst accumulation of mud and donkey droppings along the street. Areshen sometimes regretted having accepted Ibisien's offer of the military governorship of Ur, had accepted it in fact because no one else with even a reasonable measure of competency had seemed interested in doing so. As unpleasant as life might have been in any of Sumer's cities, it would only be worse if the barbarians from the western deserts or Gipul's slightly more civilized armies of Elam decided to invade. Areshen was quite aware that he was the most competent general officer capable of directing Sumer's armies should this happen, though not, he sighed, because of any extraordinary capabilities he possessed himself. It was nothing more than a simple matter of fact that most other city's military governors these days knew the locations of the brothels and the perfume baths in their cities far better than they knew the locations of the garrisons under their command. Even a few First Soldiers were beginning to look like High Priests and military governors, the girth of their stomachs truly outstanding, though Areshen had seen a slow reversal of this trend since he had obtained the dismissal of those governors who had allowed the most flagrant deterioration in their commands.

"But he's the High Priest's brother," Ibisien invariably whined whenever Areshen went to the king's palace in Ur insisting that another civil or military governor be dismissed.

"Who do you want, king," Areshen replied, "standing on the frontiers the next time the barbarians flood into Sumer? The High Priests? The High Priest's brother? Or me?"

So far Ibisien had always made the correct choice. At least, Areshen sighed, Ibi still had that much of his grandfather in him.

II

Areshen finally stepped over another pile of donkey droppings laying in the street, then through the portal into his house's small entrance chamber.

"Military governor," old Shathsurinu began as he attempted to push his bent and aged frame from the bench next to the entrance chamber's inner door in order to announce Areshen's arrival.

"Sit, old friend," and Areshen lay a hand to the old man's shoulder in gentle restraint, then stole a glance through the inner door leading into the house's courtyard. Several of the household's other servants, like the doorman belonging to Setith rather than to himself, wandered from one room to another across the courtyard, though Setith herself was nowhere in sight. Sighing a measure of relief, Areshen lowered himself to Shathsurinu's bench.

"All right, old man," Areshen began, "give it to me straight, no art, or I'll have you hung by your feet and flogged."

Shathsurinu coughed a long, mirthful laugh, then leaned closer and spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice.

"Actually, military governor, she's in an unusually good mood. The captain of the Erub was here less than an hour ago."

"Is that right?" Areshen asked, an edge of relief settling into his smile. The Erub, one the larger of that grand fleet of cargo vessels Setith owned, had been several weeks overdue. The Erub's loss would not have been a major financial tragedy to someone as wealthy as Setith, though it would have annoyed her, and Setith annoyed was best avoided by husband and servants alike.

"Priests of Nanna and Ningal also visited," Shathsurinu continued, "offering to sell the town of Polanu to the mistress at the price the mistress had proposed. The Lady Setith is now High Priestess of the goddess Kethlicuri, a divine Lady held in high esteem up and down the Pendurum Canal."

"Then Setith has had a good day," Areshen stated, another measure of smiling relief in his features.

"I believe so, military governor," Shathsurinu answered. "She hasn't even kicked me. Not once, all day long."

Areshen chuckled, though only because the old man did so himself. Areshen, however, was not in the least amused with the way Setith treated her servants, particularly old Shathsurinu, a former first soldier who after his discharge had failed as a private leather merchant in Nippur. When Shathsurinu and his family had traveled to Ur and approached Areshen offering themselves for sale and asking that Areshen recommend them to Setith, Areshen had begged Shathsurinu to look for a gentler mistress. Areshen had agreed to intercede on Shathsurinu's behalf only when the old man had repeated his plea, saying that he had been turned down everywhere else, would have to try the temple farms or one of the construction yards along the new canal, a fate even worse than Setith.

Setith's treatment of Shathsurinu's daughter had been a trying annoyance several months ago, one of those few instances in which Areshen had found it necessary to strap on his courage, stand in front of his wife, and just issue his pronouncement. Areshen had been well within his right to stand before Setith and declare, "I have spoken." The house and all of Setith's business ventures belonged to her, but the household, as long as they were married, was his, legally and finally. Issuing orders to Setith, however, was quite as exciting as had been issuing orders to the hulking Saran in his first military camp. In this case, Areshen had found circumstances dictating that he do so, that in the end, he supposed, the only real principle he believed in.

Shathsurinu's daughter had spilled wine onto Setith's dress at the dinner table or some such thing. In a rage, Setith had ordered that a wooden post be driven into the dirt in the middle of the courtyard, the entire household then assembled to witness the punishment. The girl's arms had then been tied onto the post, her body suspended several feet above the ground. A nail had then been driven through the girl's hands.

Setith had fully intended to leave the girl hanging in the courtyard until she died. Even when Areshen returned home and ordered that the girl be cut down, Setith had protested with all manner of pouting and whining for the next two days, as usual her cries ending with the words, "you do not love me anymore."

Areshen stretched his feet beside Shathsurinu on the entrance chamber's bench for another long moment. He had loved Setith very deeply twenty years ago when they had married. And Setith certainly carried those twenty years well. Setith was without doubt one of the most beautiful women in Ur, arguably in all of Sumer and Akkad. But there was much about her which had changed. Areshen himself had had to discipline soldiers many times over the past twenty years, had had to do so far more often in recent years from a military governor's throne. But Areshen was pleased to think that his judgments had been dispassionate, rational and just even when the judgment was death. And there was certainly nothing barbaric in standard methods of military execution, a quick flash of the ax, perhaps just a brief instant's physical pain, though certainly no more than was necessary. There just seemed something very needless and irrational about nailing a girl's hands to a wooden post over a few drops of spilled wine.

"It is a perfectly acceptable manner of disciplining servants," Setith had pouted. "It is quite in accord with the dictates of Holy Order. The High Priest Shubari has said so himself."

I'm sure he has, Areshen sighed as he pushed himself from the entrance chamber's bench to his feet. Shubari, sitting on top of his temple, has spoken, probably in between farts. One of these days a few ten thousand servants and canal diggers and farm laborers belonging to the temple were going to start wondering if Shubari and his precious temple were worth having nails driven through their hands. The High Priest Shubari would once again crawl through the Sacred Area's walls into the king's palace begging for the army's help. And Ibisien, with a wide smirk of pleasure on his face, would ask Shubari if Nanna and Ningal were sleeping again.

"I suppose," Ibisien had stated when Shubari had crawled into the palace several months ago asking that a slave revolt in the canal yards near Nippur be put down, "if Nanna and Ningal, who in their benevolent though mysterious wisdom saw fit to make you, Shubari, rather than me, Ibisien, High Priest, are unwilling or unable to suppress the revolt themselves, I can prevail upon the military governor."

Ibisien had summoned Areshen to the palace a week later, Ibisien in no hurry to see the slave revolt at Nippur suppressed. Anything which was a source of irritation to Shubari and the temple was a source of drunken, giggling delight to Ibisien and the palace.

"Areshen, my sweet," Ibisien painted as delicately as ever had pouted when Areshen had finally arrived at the palace, "Shubari and his servants are squabbling again, in Nippur this time. Something about nails. Be a darling for me and go do something about it."

With his usual shudder, Areshen had turned from Ibisien fondling two of his pet boys, had then set off for Nippur several days to the north. Scrounging a half dozen Sixties of chariot and short sword along the way, all that was really necessary in the situation, Areshen had then chased several thousand terrified canal workers back into the hands of their task masters. In an irritable mood because of the annoyance, Areshen had then lined the taskmasters and the High Priests who oversaw them onto the banks of the canal and demanded to know why it was necessary for the armies of Sumer and Akkad, busy as it was along the frontiers, to waste their time chasing canal diggers back into their camps.

"Have they lost their faith?" Areshen had sneered in anger. "Or have your gods run out of nails?"

"Wonderful speech, Areshen," Ibisien had giggled in delight when Areshen had returned to Ur's palace. "Shubari is livid. The Sacred Area's walls tremble with his farts."

Ibisien, however, had taken care to maintain a sufficient distance between himself and Areshen, Ur's king now and again glancing toward the sky from the palace's courtyard, watching for the bolt of lightning which must certainly strike down Ur's blasphemous military governor one of these days.

Areshen lay a hand to Shathsurinu's shoulder one final time, sighed resignation, and then stepped from the house's entrance chamber into the courtyard, one of the largest in this part of Ur, the building's basic design, however, not far different than most others in the city. Setith's rooms and chambers, a half dozen of the building's largest, lay on the east side of the courtyard, Areshen's, three smaller chambers, on the west. On the north lay the kitchens and stores, on the south the servant's quarters. Areshen stood gazing toward a date palm growing in the center of the courtyard, then spun quickly about when he sensed stealthy movement from behind. Etwabi and Kinshith, very attractive Akkadian serving girls belonging to Setith, both naked, lunged as soon as Areshen turned.

"I'll have you both flogged," Areshen barked, fixing his expression into the arrogant scowl which Setith wore when addressing misbehaving servants. "I'll have you both beheaded," Areshen tried, not quite certain why he bothered with protests sounding more a plaintive cry than anything else.

The girls, giggling in delight, seized Areshen by the arms and led him across the courtyard toward his own chambers, then into a small sitting room.

"Flog me first, military governor," Etwabi crooned as she and Kinshith pushed Areshen down onto the floor cushions.

"Just once," Areshen sighed in defeat as he lay back, the girls now running damp towels over his body, "I would like to be shown the least little bit of respect in my own house."

"We respect you, Areshen," Kinshith answered, her expression the epitome of dignity and propriety for the fleeting moment or two. Areshen rolled his eyes in resigned despair as Kinshith and Etwabi broke into mirthful, irreverent laughter, dipping their towels into basins of water next to the floor cushions and returning to a task in which both seemed genuinely to delight.

Sighing, laying back again in defeat, Areshen was quite aware it was his own fault that he couldn't even wash the street dust from his own body in his own house. In fortresses and military camps across Sumer and Akkad, even First Soldiers who resembled old Saran, towering hulks their bodies covered with all manner of battle scars, now stood trembling in awe at the approach of the military governor of Ur, the army in its entirety quite aware that its current commander was far less inclined to tolerate lapses in discipline which had grown into acute problems under Areshen's immediate predecessors. But those were free soldiers, Areshen realized as he stole another glance toward the girls now engrossed in their work. No one had forced his soldiers to lift sword in hand and pledge their lives to king and palace. They had done so of their own free will, and deserved a military governor who cared enough to insist that discipline be enforced.

Areshen glanced again toward the girls, would never understand how Setith could treat them the way she did, girls who were absolutely dependent on their mistress for everything, including their lives. Etwabi and Kinshith, in particular among Setith's servants, had been loyal and faithful for years now, genuinely respectful whenever Setith addressed them. But the girls were not free. What else did Setith want from them? What, for that matter, did Shubari and High Priests all across Sumer and Akkad want from a multitude of others who worked the temple's farms and dug the temple's canals? Areshen delighted in the light hearted laughter of the girls now washing his body in gentle and caressing touch, was pleased that Setith had not yet broken their spirits. He was quite aware that he could never bring himself to address them with anything other than clearly feigned anger. He would certainly never see the household servants as soldiers. Why do Setith and so many thousands of other household mistresses want their houses devoid of laughter, expressions of dour submission and defeat on every servant's face? This was never Ur, certainly not the Ur of Areshen's youth.

And one more revolt in the canal yards, Areshen decided with a defiant measure of anger, and he was going to lead the first Sixty into the Sacred Area, grasp Shubari's fat face with his hands, and demand to know why all these canal and farm revolts had begun as soon as Shubari himself had been proclaimed High Priest.

"Oh Areshen, my sweet," Ibisien had giggled in the palace, though he had done so, of course, from a safe distance, "you will take me with you when you invade the temple?"

"Are you not worried, king, that Nan - Nin - whoever, will strike you down?" Areshen had asked, sighing then for the dismay settling into the king's features. Ibisien, at least to an extent, was worried, one eye searching the sky for the bolt of lightning.

"Military governor," Etwabi crooned as she drew an affectionate arm about Areshen's neck, "do not frown. It ruins your beauty," and Areshen found himself chuckling in an easier humor as Etwabi leaned, her kiss to his cheek, however, something more than gentle affection. Etwabi raised her eyes to his another long moment, the same expression of pleading in the girl's features. Maybe soon, Etwabi, Areshen answered in voiceless intimacy toward another beautiful young woman waiting to become his lawful concubine. Kinshith, Areshen noticed, not quite certain if he did so in amused relief, wore little more than gentle amusement in her own features. Kinshith's dances on occasion were all of the enticing mischief Etwabi's were, though Kinshith, it seemed, cared no more for life's ceremonial profundities than did Ur's military governor.

Areshen wandered another musing moment through fortresses and military camps in cities all across Sumer and Akkad, would always feel an intense little satisfaction for the spontaneous salutes and ovations he received from garrisons on parade, subordinate civil and military governors alike standing with barely concealed expressions of envy as their commands demonstrated their loyalty and affection toward Ur's military governor. And with that, however, Areshen edged his eyes again toward a pair of his wife's serving girls, felt a very genuine warmth for the affection they very obviously expressed for him.

"That's better," Etwabi crooned for gentle ease and humor now settling into Areshen's eyes. "Do you still love us, Areshen?"

"Of course I love you," Areshen chuckled.

Swooning entrancement now in Etwabi's eyes, she leaned again, this time meeting Areshen's lips with her own. He pushed gentle hands to her shoulders, not quite certain why. It seemed as pleasant and genuine a love as any he had ever known, a warmth coursing very real paths into his heart as a young woman so obviously and painfully in love with him buried her lips onto his with pleading, urging passion. Etwabi's kisses and caresses in another quick moment the frantic, devouring intimacy he had known they would be, Areshen glanced another moment's amusement toward Kinshith now busying herself arranging towels, preparing to flee the chamber, amused mischief in Kinshith's eyes as she stole a final glance. No, Areshen pronounced, he unaccustomed to the sort of uninhibited revelries common enough in a great many of Ur's wealthier households, he more than content to remain so. He couldn't, he supposed, deny feeling all manner of earthy intrigue for that which in the eyes of two very beautiful serving girls was every manner of mischievous intrigue. He still, however, held restraining hands to Etwabi's shoulders, might allow himself the amorous abandon into which she had very obviously fallen as soon as they were alone in the chamber. He edged his eyes again toward a beautiful young woman for whom he felt, he decided, as passionate a love as any he had ever known, decided it was assenting hands he held to Etwabi's shoulders. He glanced amused appreciation toward Kinshith gathering the last of the towels - glanced then toward the sudden flurry of motion at the chamber's door any notion of amorous abandon gone in an instant.

It was the august, ostentatious procession it always was, a half dozen maidservants waving fans, as many man servants carrying the portable throne - the Lady Setith attired in all her flowing glory and regalia sweeping into the chamber.

"There," Setith snapped, and the portable throne was placed against one of the sitting room's walls, Setith installed upon the throne a quick instant later.

Areshen sighed another moment's resignation, gently urging Etwabi still writhing in an entranced frenzy back into consciousness, chuckling with easy amusement for Etwabi's soft gasp as the girl flung awakening eyes toward her mistress sitting a few feet away. Areshen settled his gaze toward his wife for another long moment as two of her maid servants arranged the folds of her majestic skirts about her feet, Setith, as usual, scowling a half dozen "you fools" as she directed the procedure. Setith, Areshen couldn't help but notice, even if her features seemed perpetually twisted into an expression of annoyance and demand, was indeed quite as beautiful as she had been twenty years ago, a stunning, piercing beauty envied from one side of the city to the other. Gone though, perhaps forever, Areshen sighed, was that gentle innocence which had so touched his heart when they had first been married.

"Beloved," Areshen began, "you are looking well."

"You as well, beloved," Setith answered, a hint of the old, gentle warmth still about the edges of her features, perhaps amusement as she gazed toward the lingering sensual entrancement just now fading from both Areshen's and Etwabi's features. Areshen was certain that he still loved Setith, just as certain that Setith still loved him, at least as far as she was capable of loving anyone. Many things which had been of paramount importance to Setith twenty years ago, however, were trivial today, other matters taking their place.

"And you are now High Priestess of Ke - Ka - "

"Kethlicuri, beloved," Setith answered, pride most likely motivating the trace of a smile she now wore. "A respectable little temple."

In other words, as profitable as a hundred other small temples in the southern part of Sumer over which Setith was already High Priestess, and Areshen lay his head back to the floor cushions as Etwabi and Kinshith now ran their towels across his body with professional detachment, the laughter gone from their eyes.

"I am pleased, beloved," Areshen answered, wondering if Setith suspected how little he cared about another temple. She probably did, Areshen decided, the wispy smile in her features concealing a mind as brilliant and as perceptive as any he could imagine.

"Beloved husband," Setith then continued, and Areshen opened his eyes for the sudden note of affection in his wife's voice, hoping that whatever she was going to ask for would not be totally outrageous. "It seems that I have also been noticed by Leshinuthu and Bilthu - "

"Lesh - who?"

"The patron deities of Bathul, beloved," patient amusement in Setith's voice.

"Oh Setith," Areshen groaned. "Bathul - that's a long and dangerous journey upriver. The city pledges, at best, nominal allegiance to Isin."

Indeed, Areshen sighed, a half dozen senior officers attached to his military headquarters currently residing in Isin had advised that Bathul be sacked once again.

"Husband, I must go to Bathul. How can I not? Leshinuthu and Bilthu have called me by name. As I lay sleeping on my bed last night - "

"Yes, beloved, of course," Areshen sighed, wondering why in forty two years he had never once received a nocturnal visitation from any of Sumer's gods himself. "But Setith, Bathul is a city, one of the largest in Akkad - " Areshen sighing in desperation realizing that he was arguing against himself. Setith was quite aware that Bathul was a city. Her agents and spies probably knew the whereabouts of every last ounce of gold in Bathul's coffers. "And La - whatever, has called upon you to be his - her, whatever, High Priestess, beloved?"

"Yes, beloved," a glint very like a shimmer of polished gold, Areshen decided, flooding across Setith's eyes. "I have received a message from my agents in Bathul confirming the revelation I received from the city's patron deities. The entire temple in convocation has pronounced Leshinuthu's and Bilthu's call authentic. They have called me by name."

In other words, Areshen suspected, finding it necessary to restrain or at the very least conceal his amusement, Bathul's patron gods had been paid off by Setith's agents, the High Priests composing the temple's convocation acting as financial intermediaries between Setith and said gods.

"Well, Setith," Areshen sighed, "I suppose you are as capable and as responsible a High Priestess as Shubari is a High Priest here in Ur."

"Husband, I assure you, you will have far fewer revolts to suppress in Bathul when I am installed there as High Priestess. I shall reside in Bathul's temple palace myself at least four months a year."

"Oh?" Areshen replied, genuine amusement now in his features for possible pleasant advantages in the situation. It was indeed a long and dangerous journey upriver to Bathul. The city itself, however, was prosperous and stable, its civil and military governors reasonably competent men even if they did tend to act a bit independently at times. Still, all Areshen really need do was write them asking that they keep an eye on Setith, dissuade her from anything overtly malicious, overlook that which was mere mischief. And Setith was indeed right about one very important matter - there had been relatively few insurrections in towns over which she was already High Priestess, though Areshen wasn't really certain why. Setith was no one's idea of a gentle task mistress. But the advantages, Areshen again thought, a soft, contented smile breaking across his features - Setith in Bathul four months a year, far, far away Bathul.

"Then you do not object, beloved?" the same knowing amusement in Setith's features.

"No, beloved. You may go to Bathul," Areshen answered, his smile broader still when he realized there would be no reason to listen to Setith's pleading for the next two months. "But Setith, please be gentle with Bathul. It's pledge of submission to me and Isin is hedging and tentative at best. It needs to be sacked again, but I haven't found the time. Don't do anything to aggravate the situation."

"Areshen," Setith replied, protest in her voice, "I am always gentle. Etwabi, Kinshith, am I not a gentle mistress?"

"Of course, mistress," Kinshith replied.

"Yes, mistress," Etwabi replied, sincerity in the girl's voice, perhaps even protest equal to Setith's.

"Please, beloved," Areshen just continued. "I cannot understand some of the things that you do."

"Areshen, you are a soldier, one of unprecedented acclaim, but you just do not understand Holy Order."

"I used to, before the High Priest Shubari became its interpreter."

"Areshen, everyone and everything has its place. That has not changed. Even Shubari, an atrocious lump of lard sitting on top of the temple intentionally farting into the faces of the gods, cannot change Holy Order."

Areshen broke into a soft chuckle. He could never accuse Setith of not retaining at least a measure of her sense of humor.

"And beloved," Setith continued, "you intentionally tamper with Holy Order yourself when you consort with the servants as though they were your equals and your friends. Dear Etwabi and Kinshith, for instance. I'm doing nothing more than looking out for their best interests, would be scandalously remiss in my duty to them did I not order them whipped when they needed it. I know you love the girls, Areshen. I love you all the more because you do. But they are children. You may love them without reservation or restraint, but you must never allow them to presume themselves capable of deciding what is in their own best interest. Nothing would more disturb Holy Order or provoke the wrath of the gods. And beloved, you simply must take the girls into concubinage if you are going to continue having sex with them. You are the only governor in Sumer and Akkad who does not bother to take concubines, Areshen. People are beginning to talk. You flaunt Holy Order. There is a proper way in everything."

"Of course, beloved," Areshen sighed, deciding, however, on one more attempt at irreverent protest. "But Setith, nails through servant's hands? That seems a bit - harsh, at least to me. What perverted god told Shubari that that was a proper means of discipline?" Areshen twisting questioning eyes toward Setith. As he might have suspected, Setith just gazed down from the heights of her throne with an expression of benevolent tolerance, quite as though she might toward a barbarian from the western deserts who couldn't possibly understand the complexities of Sumer's faith or social customs.

"Beloved," Setith pronounced as she stretched an arm toward the maid servants who lifted her from the throne, "come visit me tonight in my chambers. We will fornicate with each other, and then we will discuss it all further."

Areshen nodded, watched Setith and her entourage depart, and then settled back onto the floor cushions, his mood not really foul, though as usual after an audience with Setith, not that which it had been before. Oh for the days when he and Setith had made love, Areshen sighed. Now that Setith was High Priestess of this and that's temple in towns all across Sumer and Akkad, they fornicated, the act somehow different in Setith's mind, as though forbidden to ordinary people. Now that Setith was High Priestess of Bathul, a throne become in recent years quite as prestigious as Ur's and Shubari's, Areshen supposed he and Setith would be required to put on public performances laying on a temple's altar, a few dozen gawking priest standing in a circle applauding. Not, Areshen decided, on a bet. Holy Order be damned.

Etwabi and Kinshith both released a noticeable measure of tension with Setith's departure, though even their moods now remained subdued.

"Enough," Areshen sighed as he pushed the towels away. "Please," he repeated, gentle vehemence in his voice when they hesitated.

Both Etwabi and Kinshith pushed themselves from the floor cushions, then toward the door. Kinshith, with a final writhing dance, wandered through the door into the courtyard. Etwabi, however, turned back toward Areshen, the emotional plea clearly evident in her features. Areshen gazed toward a young woman he genuinely loved for another quick moment, as usual impressed with the keen intelligence which darted from her eyes, and then raised an arm toward her. With a gentle sigh of relief, Etwabi pushed herself back to the floor cushions and once more settled herself into Areshen's arms.

Areshen met Etwabi's lips with his own in a moment's soft, affectionate touch. He then reached for her hands, spent another long moment examining the scars. The flesh through which the nails had been driven was now healed, as much as it would probably ever heal. Physically, the wounds did nothing to diminish the young woman's striking beauty, though Areshen wondered how else they had affected her. Kinshith and most of the younger of Setith's other female servants spent endless hours adorning themselves with all manner of perfume and jewelry and every sort of finery, each hoping that the next young man with whom they became romantically involved would approach Setith asking for her permission to propose marriage. As intransigent as Setith could be in most matters, she never refused her servant's suitors, asking only the original purchase price if the young man could afford it, extending credit at generous rates of interest if he could not.

Etwabi, however, seemed to take no interest whatsoever in the myriad of proposals a young woman as beautiful as she could expect to receive, ignored the young men who flocked about her whenever she was sent to the market square, just came home and insisted she was happy with Setith, still happy with Setith, even after Setith had suspended her from a post in the middle of the courtyard with a nail driven through her hands.

"Areshen - " Etwabi began as she brushed a gentle hand to his cheek, a questioning expression in her features for the concern in his own.

"Etwabi," Areshen began, his own expression breaking from anger into gentle warmth, "I could find you a husband without difficulty. You certainly do not want to remain here with Setith."

"I do, Areshen. At least for now."

"Etwabi - " Areshen sighed, and Etwabi grasped his hands, gentle ease in her features.

"Areshen, the mistress loves me very deeply."

"Etwabi," Areshen gasped, "she hung you from a post - "

"She loves me, Areshen."

"And she said the High Priests told her that it was a perfectly acceptable means of punishment."

"Of course she did, Areshen. She had to. She hated what she had to do to me, but how can you defy Holy Order?"

"Etwabi - "

"Areshen, you do not understand. It was not at all that which it seemed to you. Areshen, will you listen? Patiently?"

Areshen sighed, laying back in defeat.

"The mistress was angry, of course. But it was not from her anger that she acted as she did. She consulted with the High Priests very carefully. She always does when she finds it necessary to punish one of us. The morning of my punishment, the mistress came to me and fell on her knees in front of me crying. 'Oh my beloved Etwabi,' she said to me, 'the gods have lost their minds. I should never have gone to the High Priest,' and I was shocked as I looked at her, Areshen. Even though I am a child, I knew that the mistress should not speak so. She told me the punishment the gods had revealed to the High Priest. 'Beloved Etwabi,' the mistress said and I was terrified by the look in her eyes now. 'Shubari is insane. We will run away together to one of my towns where the gods are not so cruel.' I was shocked, Areshen, and I was frightened. I pled with the mistress and I took her hands into my own. I would never have dared do anything like that before. I begged the mistress not to defy Nanna and Ningal because they are more powerful than almost every other god and would find us no matter where we ran and would then be very angry with the mistress. When the High Priest Executioner came the mistress took me into her arms and she wouldn't let me go. 'I was wrong to come to you,' the mistress screamed at the High Priest Executioner. 'Tell Shubari, that fat, far - ' well, the mistress can speak just like a soldier when she wants to. The High Priest Executioner, however, was a very pious and wise young man. He explained to the mistress and me why we must not defy Holy Order."

Areshen nodded, settling into a long moment's speculative wonder. It had just been too long, he supposed, since he and Setith had spent more than brief and fleeting moments with each other, Setith scurrying from one temple to another seeing to all manner of financial concern, he to fortresses and military camps along the frontiers, a dozen tribes of barbarians a constant, unrelenting nuisance. Setith, defying the High Priest? And doing so on a servant's behalf? Perhaps there was indeed a trace of the girl he had married twenty years ago remaining in Setith. He just couldn't be certain, however, little doubting that Setith's invitation to join her in her chambers this evening would be forgotten as affairs of business and temple drove trivial matters such as sex from her mind. Setith had extended Areshen any number of such invitations to her chambers over the past few years, just the hint of sultry intrigue about the edges of her features. Invariably, however, sometime during the course of the day, a servant would appear with the mistress' apologies, the mistress detained with temple and business matters of one sort or another.

Perhaps, Areshen sighed as he again wrapped Etwabi into his arms in a long moment's gentle silence, perhaps that young executioner priest had indeed been a pious, sincere young man. But what of the High Priest Shubari, and Areshen once more felt a familiar anger course through his being. So many thousands of gentle, trusting creatures like the young woman he now held in his arms waiting for Shubari to descend from the temple and reveal the latest pronouncement from the gods, and Shubari just farts out, "nails." Yes, Areshen groaned in anger, one of these days he was going to haul that farting piece of blubber off the temple and pound a few nails through his hands. Perhaps Shubari would then decide that he had misinterpreted the latest pronouncement from Ur's - stinking gods. Let the lightning come, and Areshen glared toward the ceiling in anger. Do it now. You might not have another chance.

"Areshen, you're frowning again," Etwabi whispered in a soothing voice, her hands to his in gentle caress until she felt his tension subside.

"Etwabi, perhaps Setith is right. Perhaps I do not understand. I certainly do not understand you. Your family's gods are not Ur's gods. You have said so yourself many times, as does your brother every time he visits."

"Teru," Etwabi continued with a soft chuckle, "is a nuisance to you, isn't he, Areshen? He knows you love me. He speaks presumptuously because of it."

"He speaks his mind, Etwabi. He just does not realize that he is wasting it on the person to whom he is speaking. The total of my understanding of our gods could be written on one very small tablet. I could never begin to understand his gods as well."

"Teru has only one."

"Who has told him that he and his whole family must leave Ur for the north."

"Yes."

"You should go with him, Etwabi. Setith would not object."

It was yet again pleading strength in Etwabi's arms. Areshen no longer attempted to deny the depth of his feelings for her, wrapped her into an embrace of close, finished intimacy.

"Areshen - " Etwabi tried, a soft yet desperate cry as she met his eyes. Areshen just pulled her head onto his shoulder, held a woman he genuinely loved in warm embrace, wondered again why he had not just gone ahead and made her his concubine. She had pled so many times now. Setith certainly did not seem to object, had, as a genuine expression of her own love for him, offered to release Etwabi to him at five sixths the price she had paid for her. Other civil and military governors kept as many as a dozen concubines. Both these governors and Setith thought it exceptionally bizarre that the military governor of Ur, not a wealthy man, but certainly far from destitute, kept none.

Again Etwabi raised pleading eyes to Areshen.

"Perhaps soon, Etwabi," Areshen began in a gentle voice. "Give me a little more time, beloved," and Areshen felt again the intimate strength of Etwabi's arms, a cry of ecstasy wrenched from her throat for the endearment.

"I love you, Areshen," she whispered.

"What would your brother say, Etwabi?"

"You know what he would say, Areshen. He would be furious."

"He would be furious if he saw us now, I suppose," Areshen chuckled.

"Stop, Areshen," though he couldn't restrain another soft chuckle, quite aware that Etwabi still felt at least a twinge of concern for the simple fact that she was naked as she lay in his arms.

"Etwabi," her brother, fanatical in his devotion to his strange god native somewhere to the western deserts, had gasped the last time he had visited, "you are naked."

Areshen, just as naked at the time, had stared back in amusement and confusion. Half of Ur was naked at least half the time. Ur's gods didn't seem to have much to say on the matter.

"Besides," Etwabi finally continued, "Teru will forget me when he leaves Ur. They all will. They'll be far away in the north."

"You will be lonely, Etwabi. And they will take their gods - their god with them. Will you not be lonely without your god, Etwabi?"

Another woman, Areshen sighed, was staring toward him as though she might toward a barbarian from the western deserts.

"Teru's god does not live in stone, Areshen, or so Teru says. I really don't understand all of Teru's words myself. I suppose that is why he is always so furious with me."

"The gods -" and Areshen decided to change the subject before the onset of the inevitable headache any discussion of the gods caused him. "I see Ibisien later this afternoon. Actually, I should be at the palace now, but he can wait."

Etwabi broke into a soft chuckle, quite aware that Areshen held Ur's king in esteem only slightly higher than he held the High Priest Shubari and Ur's gods. Etwabi was also quite aware, however, of where the real power in Sumer and Akkad lay these days. She was holding the man who wielded it in her own arms. Areshen had no pressing need to bow in respect to anyone, though Areshen being Areshen, he still offered the pretense of a bow to Ur's king, at least in public.

"I'm going to ask Ibisien about this nail thing," Areshen continued. "It is quite within the purview of the Assembly to nullify this asinine foolishness of Shubari's, and they are damn well going to do it."

"My brother respects you, Areshen," Etwabi just said, chuckling for the expression of amaze in Areshen's features. "Teru says that you are a decent man, god fearing in your own way, even if you don't believe in god."

"Most people call me 'the man with no god of his own,'" Areshen chuckled.

"Teru disagrees, Areshen."

"Has he been talking to his god again?"

"You really are awful, Areshen. I am certainly going to loose you to a lightning bolt."

Areshen chuckled, glanced toward the ceiling, chuckled perhaps a bit more reverently.

"Teru says that it will be his son who talks to god."

"To god?"

"That's how Teru says it. I don't understand Teru either. He also said something very frightening, Areshen. He said that the nails will be gone before the end of the year because Sumer is ruled by a decent man and the nails are an aberration. But Teru says there will come a time, many years from now, when a land even greater than Sumer will rule the world, another land which will use nails against their own people, and they will drive nails even into the hands and feet of our god."

Areshen met Etwabi's eyes in silence for a long moment, genuine concern for her in his own. He couldn't help but notice the gentle faith in Etwabi's voice whenever she spoke of the gods, or god, as her brother Teru put it. Perhaps that was why he had never made Etwabi his concubine. Teru planned to take his whole family into the north. As bitter as the arguments between Teru and Etwabi had been, Areshen had always sensed a genuine love between brother and sister whenever he had seen them together. Areshen further suspected that Etwabi was far more pious than she would admit even to herself at the moment. If Etwabi did remain in Ur when Teru and his family migrated into the north, Areshen knew that he would never abandon her, would most certainly never allow her to again endure the pain to which the High Priests had subjected her. Again, however, Areshen heard the gentle faith in Etwabi's voice, genuinely doubted that she would be happy remaining in Ur once her family had gone, no matter how much she loved him.

III

Shubari se Kerbi, High Priest of the High Priests of Nanna and Ningal, processed from the Sacred Palace to the steps of the temple accompanied by the Noble Priests, the Incantation Priests, the Throne Bearer Priests, the Executioner Priests, the Libations Priest, the Incense Priest, the Lower Order Priests, and many other priests, the entire route of the procession across Ur's Sacred Area well protected by heavily armed. contingents of the temple guard. Another Sixty armed with pike and short sword stood to attention beneath the towering walls of the temple, Ur's the House of the Unending Union Between Heaven and Earth. The High Priest Shubari, outstanding in the midst of a sea of flowing, fluttering robes due both to the fact of his massive bulk as well as the ostentatious majesty of his own regalia, stood for another brief moment at the base of the temple's steps gazing with an expression of benevolent concern toward the faithful of Ur now crowded among the palaces, courtyards, and workshops within the Sacred Area's walls. A dozen Incantation Priests, those who would accompany the High Priest the entire distance to the top of the temple, sighed with relief. At least Shubari endeavored to maintain a demeanor of pious solemnity in public. If the manner in which the High Priest Shubari deported himself in the Divine Chamber atop the temple ever became a topic of popular discussion, a far greater percentage of the temple's revenue accumulated in the Great Court of Nanna would have to be expended paying for the guards the Sacred Area would need.

Shubari finally settled his bulk onto the portable throne, and a dozen Throne Bearer Priests bent toward gold plated carry poles extending to the front and to the rear of the throne, the priests groaning in strain as they lifted it and its massive occupant onto their shoulders. Followed by those priests who would accompany the High Priest up the slopes of Ur's Holy Mountain, the High Priest Shubari began his ascent to the domain of the gods.

Shubari allowed his features to lapse into apathy as the distance from the admiring crowds of faithful standing at the base of the temple increased. He glanced another long moment toward the roofs of the king's palace just now visible to the south of the Sacred Area's walls. Ibisien, Shubari muttered, his brow wrinkled in annoyance; Ibisien, a lover of boys and men, who was probably sitting in his palace squirming in giggling delight as his scribes, poets, and portrait carvers labored with pen or chisel extolling the virtue and justice of a king who was seldom sober long enough to appreciate any of it anyway. Ibisien, however, was by and large harmless, a king, the High Priest Shubari decided, who reveled in his grandfather's glory and honor, he and his statue carvers completely unconcerned for the fact that he had done nothing himself to merit the glory and honor in which he reveled. The Assembly, at least, was competent enough to appreciate this as well, had refrained from petitioning for Ibisien's recognition as a living god.

Areshen, however, military governor of Ur, was a different matter altogether, far from harmless. And Shubari was quite aware that the Akkadian city of Isin was now far more than Areshen's military headquarters. How dare that blasphemous apostate with no god of his own, Shubari seethed, criticize the manner in which the High Priest of the High Priests of Nanna and Ningal oversaw the faithful who worked on the temple's farms and dug the temple's canals? What does Areshen, a man without even a single concubine, a man who frolics with his wife's servants quite as though they were his friends and his equals, know of the difficulties the High Priest faced as interpreter of Holy Order, the Sacred Vessel through which Nanna and Ningal spoke to the people of Ur? Perhaps, Shubari decided, when Setith was installed as High Priestess in Bathul, she might be persuaded to pull Areshen back onto his leash. Then again, Shubari sighed, Setith's cadre of agents and spies was quite as extensive as his own. And Setith, Shubari sighed again, was a very expensive bitch.

Shubari's greatest concern, however, was the suppression of any popular movement in which the further privatization of Sumer's farms and factories was again advocated. It had taken years for Shubari to undo the damage the present king's grandfather had done when he had wrested so much of the economy of Sumer from the control of its temple and religious institutions, confiscating farm after farm, factory after factory all across Sumer and Akkad and placing them under the jurisdiction of the king's palace, or even worse, into the hands of private individuals. Even today there were dozens, perhaps still hundreds of individuals, the bitch Setith for instance, owned by no one, their wealth and their influence rivaling that of the temple in the city in which they resided, a dangerous and blasphemous situation. People owned by absolutely no one, Shubari mumbled in amaze, people with no one to whip them for the pleasure of the gods. How perverse society had become under Ibisien's grandfather. How fortunate that he, Shubari, had become High Priest when he had. Perhaps, if a few thousand more people were hung from posts with nails driven through their hands, the delicate balance of Holy Order upon which Sumer depended could be restored.

Shubari doubted that Areshen of Isin, even if he did in fact now rule most of Sumer and Akkad from his military headquarters in Isin, felt any great measure of personal concern regarding social or economic matters in Ur or Sumer. Shubari doubted that Areshen, raised according to his spies and informants on a pig farm near Sannu, knew a great deal about such matters to begin with. Areshen was undeniably a brilliant soldier, had completely revitalized the armies of Sumer and Akkad the garrisons of which were loyal to him almost to the last man. But Areshen had one major flaw which Shubari, High Priest of Nanna and Ningal, could not tolerate. Areshen was not afraid to fart into the faces of the gods. I, Shubari seethed, am the only man in Sumer entitled to fart into the faces of the gods.

Shubari sighed in frustration, this time when he felt the portable throne bump to the floor beneath the entrance chamber's pillars, a tall domed structure on the temple's first terrace which gave access through a rear portal to another set of steps leading up to the temple's summit and the Divine Chamber. At the entrance chamber's rear portal stood the half dozen male and female prostitutes who spent their days waiting in the entrance chamber hoping to service Nanna and Ningal should god or goddess appear wishing to be serviced.

With the help of two straining Incantation Priests, Shubari pushed himself from the portable throne and then walked to the chamber's rear portal, glaring with dismay toward the steps which led up to the Divine Chamber, steps, Shubari sighed, which he must climb with nothing more than the shoulders of Incantation Priests for help. Perhaps, Shubari mused, Nanna and Ningal should pronounce that they had granted their permission for the Throne Bearer Priests to carry the High Priest the rest of the way up. No, Shubari sighed again, the fewer who knew what really went on in the Divine Chamber, the better, and Shubari turned to the male and female prostitutes who immediately intoned their liturgies.

"Most noble and exalted High Priest of Nanna," the female prostitutes chanted in unison, "we have waited faithfully and in prayer, beseeching Nanna to come so that we may fornicate with him. He has not come."

"Most noble and exalted High Priest of Ningal," the male prostitutes chanted, the same formula with the appropriate variations, the word "not," as usual, inserted into the final line.

When the holy prostitutes had concluded their liturgies, Shubari stood panting with mouth open for another long moment, though no one in the entrance chamber expected him to deliver the proper response, an ancient liturgy of considerable length and detail. Everyone in the entrance chamber, however, was quite aware of the advantages of keeping their own mouths shut. Only the most brazen and daring of gamblers and risk takers chanced revealing the liberties the High Priest Shubari took with proper liturgical procedure. Most who did so soon felt the bite of the ax to their necks.

Shubari gazed across the submissive and pious faces in front of him, daring them to show the least hint of emotion as he delivered his response to their liturgy. Shubari then thrust his face toward the holy prostitutes, his liturgical response a rasping, thundering belch which echoed off the entrance chamber's four walls for a length of time most present would previously have considered impossible. As usual, the Incantation Priests, particularly those one or two who were devout worshippers of Nanna and Ningal, struggled to control their despondent sighs. Only they would hear similar liturgical responses resounding off the walls of the Divine Chamber atop the temple, responses intentionally directed toward the Holy Couch on which Nanna and Ningal sat, and emanating from a posterior orifice in the High Priest Shubari's body.

In the beginning, there was water. Then An separated the waters above from the waters below, and so there were waters above and there were waters below. It was An who separated the waters above from the waters below.

Then An said to his wife Tiatul, "come wife, Tiatul, let us fornicate," and so An fornicated with Tiatul. Then Tiatul said, "Look, An. I have produced another god because we fornicated."

An then made a man from the clay of the ground because An was fatigued. "I will rest now," An said to the man he had made from the clay of the ground, "because I am fatigued. You shall do my work for me and feed me so that I may rest. I will fornicate with Tiatul and she will produce many more gods for you to feed. Then the earth will flourish with cattle and green things of every kind. Then I shall eat of the produce of the earth which you shall gather for me. There will be many gods for you to feed."

The man had sons and daughters and they lived in the south where two rivers flow to the sea.

Then a flood came, but Gosunuri built a boat and got away.

Then after the flood the king of Epil came and learned to write, and ruled the entire land of Sumer. Then every other king since Epil was king has said, "I am the king of Epil," because the king of Epil was a great king who ruled the entire land of Sumer.

Then the king of Oculu came, but nothing important happened.

Then the king of Ur came who was called Apanada and said, "I will build a temple which will rise up to heaven." Then Epenatu was king of Ur. Epenatu did not die like other kings. Instead, Epenatu and his entire household, his cup bearer and his harp players, his clowns and his butler, his soldiers and his donkeys, his wives and his concubines, all said to each other, "we will not die like other men." The reason they said this, the cup bearer and the harp players, the clowns and the butler, the soldiers and the donkeys, the wives and the concubines, was because they loved their king. "We shall go with the king into his tomb." And so the entire household of Epenatu, the cup bearer and the harp players, the clowns and the butler, soldiers and donkeys, wife and concubines, accompanied the king into his tomb. In all, twenty one men and two hundred and fifty six women accompanied Epenatu into his tomb, and so they did not die like other men.

Then Innana came and leaned against a Tubul tree and looked down on her private parts. "My private parts are magnificent private parts," Innana said to herself, and she admired her private parts. "From my private parts shall flow all the wealth of Sumer, the cattle and the green things of the earth of every kind." That is why the High Priest of Uruk is called the High Priest of Innana, although the people of Akkad say that it was Tursetil who looked down on her private parts in admiration, but it was not. It was Innana who looked down on her private parts in admiration.

Then Mestipal was king of Tagru and he said to the High Priest of Tagru, "you are no longer the High Priest of Tagru, because the people of Tagru have cried out to me. The High Priest of Tagru taxes our cattle, he taxes our beer, he taxes our beds. We can pay no more taxes." So the king of Tagru said to the High Priest of Tagru, "come, let us climb together to the top of the temple. Have no fear, High Priest of Tagru, for I, the king of Tagru, will certainly not throw you off the top of the temple." So the king of Tagru climbed to the top of the temple with the High Priest of Tagru. When the king of Tagru had climbed with the High Priest of Tagru to the top of the temple after saying, "have no fear, High Priest of Tagru, for I, the king of Tagru, will certainly not throw you off the top of the temple," the king of Tagru threw the High Priest off the top of the temple.

Then Peshenendu was king of Tagru and he gave the temple back to the High Priest when he saw that the gods of Tagru were angry and he realized that it was not right for Mestipal to have thrown the High Priest off the top of the temple.

Then kingship passed to Sargon who built his city in Akkad. Sargon conquered the whole world. Then Sargon said, "I am a god." And so Sargon became a god. Sargon was the first king who became a god, though the people of Sumer say that Sargon did not become a god. It was Sargon's son who became a god.

Finally kingship passed back to Ur again and Urnammu became king of Ur. Urnammu was king of Ur for seventeen years. Then Shulgi became king of Ur. Shulgi was king of Ur for seven hundred and forty eight years. Then Shuasen became king of Ur. Shuasen was king of Ur for nine years. Then Ulanu became king of Ur. Ulanu was king of Ur for nine years. Then Ibisien became king of Ur. Ibisien is still king of Ur.

After kingship had again passed to Ur, Urnammu who ruled for seventeen years said, "I am the king of the Four Quarters of the world." Then Urnammu wrote down the laws and said, "if a man puts out another man's eye, he must pay that man ten shekels of silver because he has put out another man's eye. If a man promises to deliver five loads of bricks and he only delivers four loads of bricks, then he must deliver one more load of bricks. If two men are fighting and one of them grasps the other man's private parts, the man who grasped the other man's private parts shall have his hand cut off unless he pays the other man five shekels of silver." Urnammu built The House that Rises up to Heaven in Ur.

Then Shulgi became king of Ur. Shulgi who ruled Ur for forty seven years said, "I am the High Priest too." And so Shulgi became the High Priest too. Then Shulgi said, "Now I am a god." And so Shulgi became a god.

Then Shuasen became king of Ur. Shuasen who ruled Ur for fourteen years didn't do anything important.

Then Ulanu became king of Ur. Ulanu who ruled Ur for nine years didn't do anything important.

Then Ibisien became king of Ur and king of the Four Quarters, but most people say that Areshen of Isin is king of the Four Quarters.

This is why.

The people of Tabru said that Areshen was their king and that Ibisien was not their king because Areshen was their military governor.

Then Ibisien said to Areshen, "you shall be military governor of Oritu instead of Tabru, because the people of Tabru say that you are king instead of me. They name the year as they choose instead of according to my command."

Then the people of Oritu said that Areshen was their king and that Ibisien was not their king because Areshen was their military governor.

Then Ibisien said to Areshen, "you shall be military governor of Susa instead of Oritu, because the people of Oritu say that you are king instead of me. They name the year as they choose instead of according to my command."

Then the people of Susa and the people of Asshur and the people of Dolitu and the people of Nippur and the people of Lituru and many other people said that Areshen was their king and that Ibisien was not their king because Areshen was their military governor.

Then Ibisien said to Areshen, "why do the people of Susa and the people of Asshur and the people of Dolitu and the people Nippur and the people of Lituru and many other people say that you are king instead of me? They name the year as they choose instead of according to my command."

Areshen said, "I don't know, king."

Most people say that Areshen called Ibisien king because Areshen did not want to be the king. Still, Areshen did not say to the cities which called him king instead of Ibisien, "you must not call me king instead of Ibisien," even though Ibisien said that Areshen said to the people who called him king instead of Ibisien, "you must not call me king instead of Ibisien."

Then in the tenth year that Ibisien was king of Ur, the Amuru broke across the wall that Shulgi had built in the north to keep the Amuru out of Sumer and Akkad and the Amuru pillaged Sumer and Akkad.

Areshen went to the palace and said, "king, you must make me military governor of Tabru or the Amuru will sack it."

But Ibisien said, "I will not, because the people of Tabru will call you king and name the year as they choose instead of according to my command. Belslurud will lead the army."

And so the Amuru sacked Tabru.

Then Areshen went to the palace and said, "king, you must make me military governor of Akkad or the Amuru will sack it."

But Ibisien said, "I will not, because the people of Akkad will call you king and name the year as they choose instead of according to my command. Teredu will lead the army."

And so the Amuru sacked Akkad.

Then Areshen went to the palace - (fourteen repetitions of the formula omitted).

Then all the people of Sumer went to the palace and said, "king, you must make Areshen military governor of Isin, because the Amuru have overrun the entire north. The north no longer sends its grain to the south and we are starving. Send Areshen to drive the Amuru back across the walls that Shulgi built to keep the Amuru out."

So the king said to Areshen, "Areshen, you may go to Isin and be the military governor and drive the Amuru back across the wall that Shulgi built to keep the Amuru out, but you must not let the people of Isin call you king and name the year as they choose instead of according to my command."

Ibisien said this because all the people of Sumer went to his palace and grasped his private parts until he said it.

Then Areshen gathered the armies of Sumer and Akkad onto boats. Areshen gathered twenty seven thousand foot soldiers and four hundred and twenty nine chariots onto boats and sailed up the copper river where he slaughtered the Amuru to the last man and then drove all the rest of the Amuru back across the wall that Shulgi had built to keep the Amuru out. Then Areshen said to the Amuru he did not drive back across the wall that Shulgi had built to keep the Amuru out, "you may remain in Sumer and Akkad. The High Priests will give you land to farm. The High Priests will not mistreat you because Sumer and Akkad is a land of law and justice. The laws have been written down." Areshen really believed this. He then showed the chiefs of the Amuru and their horses the laws which Urnammu had written down, and the Amuru and their horses said that they would not sack any more cities because of the justice of the laws which had been written down.

Then Ibisien said to Areshen, "you are not military governor of Isin anymore. You will be military governor of Ur." Ibisien said this because the people of Isin called Areshen their king. The High Priests of Isin also said that Areshen was a god, and Ibisien wanted Areshen to demand that the people of Isin stop calling Areshen their king and their god. Ibisien also wanted the people of Sumer and Akkad to let go of his private parts. But Areshen did not ask the people of Isin to stop calling him their king and their god. Areshen did make the people of Sumer and Akkad let go of Ibisien's private parts.

"You must let go of Ibisien's private parts," Areshen said, "or I will have to pay him five shekels of silver."

Areshen glanced up from the tablet for a quick moment, then gazed through a window into the courtyard of Teru's house, a small private school for aspiring young scribes not far from his own house. A dozen students, most of them very young and the author of the tablet Areshen had been reading most likely among them, were busy at a bench in the middle of the courtyard preparing new writing tablets, picking small pebbles from pales of clay, then packing the clay into small wooden molds.

Teru se Shathsurinu, Etwabi's brother, made a marginal living as a private teacher here in this house, would have done better teaching in a temple school, but for doctrinal reasons Areshen supposed he would never understand, Teru refused to affiliate himself either with the temple or the High Priest Shubari.

Areshen glanced another quick moment toward the young man sitting at table across the room. Twenty five, with bright, intelligent eyes, the resemblance between Teru and Etwabi was striking. Areshen fell again into the warmth of Etwabi's arms, pondering the passionate, urging strength of her embrace. Etwabi, before Areshen had left, had pled yet again to become his concubine, Areshen promising to give the matter serious consideration as he stepped through the door, Ibisien and the palace his ultimate destination. Perhaps, Areshen had then decided, a few minutes conversation with Teru might be settling. Ibisien and the palace, as usual, could wait.

Areshen read again the final few lines on the tablet, then with an easy smile pushed it back across the table toward Teru.

"You will, of course," Areshen stated, "wipe this slate clean."

The young teacher released a soft chuckle, then answered in complacent resignation.

"I will, of course. It seems a pity to do so, however. An eight year old's tablet onto which a measure of truth has been inscribed is wiped clean, while the archives of temple and palace sit undisturbed, the lies therein contained sanctioned and eventually ennobled. Sumer would best be served by it gods," Teru sneered, "should those gods descend from the temple and wipe the officially sanctioned slate of Sumer clean."

"Truth is a dangerous thing in Sumer these days, my young friend. The archives of Isin will tolerate no more of it than will the archives here in Ur. Not only am I god in Isin, but now I am Akkadian as well, nine feet tall, son of the king of Mari."

"You are not?" Teru chuckled, feigned disbelief in his features.

"It serves no one, Isin or Ur, that I was born on a temple farm a few hour's drive from the walls of Ur and am as Sumer as Ibisien or Shubari. Anyway, enough of nonsense. Are you leaving Ur, Teru?"

"You're quite in love with Etwabi, aren't you, military governor?" Teru asked with a gentle smile.

"I want her to know happiness, Teru. I don't want her to suffer needlessly. She says that you will not take your god with you - or cannot take your god with you - " and Areshen hesitated, glanced about the chamber in vain for Teru's god, then just waited for Teru to explain.

"Our god can be taken nowhere, Areshen, because he lives in something which can either be harder than stone or metal, or something which can be far more malleable. He lives in human hearts. He will always live in Etwabi's heart whether or not she remains in Ur," and Teru glanced toward the child's tablet laying on the table. "Did you notice young Tethoduri's dissertation on the flood?"

"Certainly the brevity of it. 'Gosunuri built a boat.'"

"Tethoduri's family are devout in their worship of An. They come from a very ancient town where An still appears first on every list of the gods. 'We are privileged,' young Tethoduri argues. 'We need no minor gods to intercede for us. The god of the sky is our god.' Then Tethoduri stands in wonder as I argue that there is a god even more ancient than An, a god, in fact, begotten by no other god, a god who has never had need of wife or consort. 'How can that be?' young Tethoduri asks. 'Did your god not take a consort, there would be no other gods, no people, no nothing. Your god would forever be alone.'"

"And is he?" Areshen asked.

"No, not as long as there are people like Etwabi, and young Tethoduri in the world. And you, Areshen."

"Me?"

"Three months ago," Teru continued with a soft smile, "Tethoduri's dissertation on the flood might have been as elaborate as that of any other of my students, few of whom can fathom my family's retelling of the flood poem, Sumer's, I will argue, a corruption of the original. Nor, I suppose, can young Tethoduri yet understand the complexities, though he is obviously now trying to do so. And I did not tell him to do so, Areshen. I did no more than recite my family's traditional poem of the flood."

"The one that has the promise at the end?"

"I always suspected that you understood more than you would ever admit, Areshen. Yes, the one with the promise at the end. Someone else, as I say, told young Tethoduri to listen. It was not I. Tethoduri is not yet able to understand our - strange god from the deserts, not yet able to expound on truths he suspects lay hidden within that god's poetry. He now finds that something is lacking in Sumer's traditions, however, a lengthy dissertation on its flood poem not worth his time. To conclude, Areshen, our god will still be with Etwabi even if I and the rest of my family leave Ur."

Again Teru broke into a soft smile as the military governor of Ur, the man now proclaimed in most city's libraries save Ur's to be the divine king of the Four Quarters of the World, messaged the ache from his head. The only gods who did not give Areshen of Isin headaches, Teru supposed, were the beer gods in Shensulith Square, gods Areshen was known to reverence with considerable fervor.

"Teru," Areshen finally stated, "it almost sounds quite as though you would not be unhappy were Etwabi to remain here in Ur with me."

"I would cry for the distance between Etwabi and me, military governor, not because there would be any distance between Etwabi and god. And the fact that Etwabi continued to reside in the household of Areshen would not be a matter of concern to me. Areshen's dissertation on the flood would make Tethoduri's seem verbose."

"Perhaps that is why they call me the man with no god of his own," Areshen chuckled.

"I would prefer to think, the man with no gods, Areshen."

"Oh? Have you - ah - "

"Been talking to god again? Let me just say that I try to listen."

"Before the battle of Duri Kul, the priests taking the auspices plucked the liver from the sheep, and it was full of worms, the auspices unreadable. 'You must not fight, military governor,' the priests pronounced. 'The gods have spoken.' I fought anyway, and won - a decisive victory. Then before the second battle of Duri Kul, the priests plucked a clean liver from the sheep and slapped it onto the altar. 'The auspices are favorable, military governor. You will vanquish the Amuru today. The gods have spoken.' It rained in the desert; my chariots were mired to their axles in the mud. No one vanquished anyone that day," and Areshen turned a questioning expression of amusement toward the young man sitting across the table. Areshen was quite aware that this and most of his other philosophical musings were sources of considerable amusement to Teru. Areshen was unconcerned for the fact, however. He genuinely enjoyed his impromptu conversations with this intelligent young man.

"I own no sheep, Areshen," Teru just chuckled. "I seldom have the price even of a liver. So I must do the best I can without them."

"And I suppose I must do the best I can despite them," Areshen answered, releasing a long sigh of annoyance as he glanced toward the courtyard, the garish and ostentatious magnificence of the palace's courtyards now on his mind. "I suppose Ibisien will be devastated if I don't put in an appearance today."

"Why do you bother with Ibisien and Ur, military governor? Very few others do."

Areshen chuckled, though Teru's observation was most certainly true. Ur and the palace of Ibisien were now little more than pretense; a great many, for that matter, were not even bothering with the pretense any more. Most other civil and military governors in Sumer and Akkad, a few of whom now refereed to themselves as loyal and faithful servant kings of Areshen, divine king of Isin and king of the Four Quarters, addressed their correspondence to Areshen's military headquarters near Isin rather than to Ur and Ibisien.

"I suppose I still respect Ibisien," Areshen finally answered. "At least to an extent."

"He does nothing," Teru replied, question in his own features. "He sits in his palace stupefied, a cup of wine in one hand, his latest little boy pet in the other."

"Which leaves him little time to do much harm, Teru. But what of Shubari, and Shubari's sitting on top of temples all across Sumer and Akkad? There seems to have been a rather remarkable renewal in piety across Sumer and Akkad over the past few years, wouldn't you say? The temples are flourishing. People flock into the Sacred Area to pay their taxes without a single visit from the temple guard."

"When the Amuru poured across the walls eight years ago, people began trickling back into the temple here in Ur. When the famine came, the trickle became a flood."

"And now Shubari is old king - what's his name, all over again," and Areshen nodded toward the writing tablet laying on the table. "Half the people in Ur are ready to follow fat Shubari into his tomb, Teru. Those who do so will be very annoyed when the harp and pipe players fall silent and the music blown from Shubari's hind end is all that bounces off the crypt's walls."

"In other words," Teru chuckled, "you are asking how so many people can follow a man like Shubari, his - eccentricities during liturgical services atop the temple known to more than a few."

"It is the same, my advisors and agents in Isin tell me, everywhere in Sumer and Akkad. Even in Nippur, especially in Nippur," Areshen sighed in frustration. The high temple of Enlil, the god Enlil for centuries now supreme in the Sumerian pantheon of the gods, lay in the city of Nippur, a city considered sacred across Sumer and Akkad and the office of its High Priest, ceremonially at least, a position even more prestigious than Shubari's in Ur. Even in Nippur, however, especially in Nippur, Areshen sighed again, the High Priest enjoyed the unswerving loyalty of the city's Sumerian and Akkadian populace, driving nails through their hands one after the other. Nippur, however, had also been the site of the most recent slave revolt by a tribe of Amuru which had been settled there by Areshen after the war, a tribe the chiefs of which had believed Areshen when he had told them that Sumer was a land of law and justice.

"Is it true," Teru chuckled, a moment's mirth in his features, "that you presented the tablets of Urnammu to the Amuru's horses?"

"Old Terthex and Serthos," Areshen chuckled, "feigned ignorance during the treaty negotiations when I showed the tablets to the council of chiefs at the war's conclusion. Both Terthex and Serthos, before they returned to their tribes, reluctantly I might add, were educated in Nippur, developed a taste for the perfume baths, are quite as literate as any High Priest. During the negotiations, however, they judged it convenient to forget everything they had learned in Nippur. 'Then I will show the tablets to the most intelligent of the company presently assembled,' I informed them, and carried the tablets to their horses tethered just beyond the council fires."

Areshen sat in pondering silence another moment, vehemence in his voice when he continued.

"The military governor of Nippur has told me that many of the Amuru who have lost loved ones to the High Priest's nails have been found on the roads leading west, fleeing back across the walls. When they arrive home, those who happen to have survived the nails will show their brethren the scars in their hands. 'This is the justice that Areshen promised us when he held the tablets of Urnammu in his hands proclaiming Sumer to be a land of law.' Then another hundred thousand Amuru will pour across the walls, Teru, and none of the chiefs will believe anything I have to say to them. The child writing the next history of it all will just write, 'Areshen slaughtered them all,' and nothing will follow. The child will not write that Areshen allowed some of the Amuru to return home, that Areshen allowed others to settle in Sumer and Akkad. The Amuru will look at the scars on the hands of their brothers and sisters who believed Areshen the last time, and they will say, 'do not believe Areshen. He is a liar. Do not believe him when he tells you that the High Priests are just and gentle. Fight to the death this time.' And that is what they will do, Teru."

Teru wasn't certain how to answer, could not help but notice the anger in Areshen's eyes.

"Nails," Areshen sighed, once again in a thoughtful and contemplative tone, "have also not been written onto the tablets of Sumer and Akkad."

"They are an aberration. They do not belong in Sumer and Akkad. They will go before the end of the year."

Areshen finally broke into a soft smile once again.

"So Etwabi has said. Has your god spoken, Teru? Will he speak to the High Priests as well?"

"God has spoken, military governor. It will be the military governor, however, who speaks to the High Priests."

"Somehow I suspected you might say that, Teru," Areshen sighed as he pushed himself to his feet. "Come to my house before you leave Ur, Teru. Your god will not object to a short visit, will he?"

"Not unless you demand that I begin paying homage to Eshla," Teru answered with a soft chuckle. Eshla, sitting in her small niche near the entrance chamber in Areshen's house, was duly reverenced by Setith and the household servants. To Areshen, Eshla's head was a convenient place to toss his cloak on a cold winter's day.

"Your god is a jealous god, Teru," Areshen stated, not really surprised when Teru readily agreed.

"He is a jealous god," Teru observed.

"And he seems to take a great deal of interest in the manner in which you conduct yourself," and Areshen aimed a questioning smile toward Teru, a young man who Areshen would readily admit lived his life according to the demands of his god, no matter how strange and bizarre those demands seemed. To Areshen, the gods were a slightly greater nuisance than a family pet. As a child in the small temple village of Sannu, Areshen remembered having to feed his family's gods at the most inconvenient times, his mother forever scolding him when he was tardy. Both of the family's dogs had always seemed far more patient.

"What," Teru began, hesitantly at first, obviously searching his thought, "have the gods of Sumer promised you, Areshen?"

"Promised?" Areshen asked. The question didn't seem to make sense. You feed gods. If you feed them according to schedules annoying in their regularity, they stay off your back until it's time to feed them again. "Your god has promised you something, Teru?"

"That's the one aspect of my family's belief which young Tethoduri cannot understand either, though I believe he is trying to do so."

"Well, my young friend," Areshen concluded as he pushed himself toward the door, "if you are able, write and tell me how it is with you when you have moved to the north."

"I will indeed be able to do so, Areshen. Were I to travel to India, I would still not find myself beyond the king of Isin's influence."

"Teru," Areshen answered, though now with a subtle and yielding expression of amusement, "I am the lowly and humble military governor of Ur."

"A ruse," Teru chuckled, "that will also not last the year."