by Donald Moffitt
Tim Foley
* * * *
It had been a vexing morning for the scribe Nabu-zir. First there had been the difficulty with the temple official Lu-inanna over the inventory lists that he said the temple scribes were too busy to work on today. He had promised a half mina of silver for the job, which had turned out to be twice as long as he’d said, and which had eaten up half the morning. And then Lu-inanna had tried to fob him off with a quarter mina. Next there had been the loan agreement, where the two parties had kept changing the terms after the clay had already been inscribed. Nabu-zir had ruined a half dozen tablets that could no longer be smoothed over and rewritten, until he’d finally had to tell the two fools to go away and come back when they were ready to imprint their signature seals.
And finally there had been that cursed wedding contract.
Nabu-zir stared after the departing wedding group and shook his head. They were halfway to the temple steps and they were still quarreling. The bride’s father had balked at putting his seal on the tablet, claiming that the father of the would-be groom had reduced the agreed bride price. The young man’s father, in retaliation, had accused the other of evading his own obligations. The two hired witnesses had then chimed in, each on the side of his principal, and almost come to blows. Then they had all turned on Nabu-zir, blaming him for the impasse. Meanwhile the poor girl, whose mother was a household slave, had burst into tears, while the embarrassed young man stood by helplessly.
The six of them turned the corner into the ziggurat precincts and disappeared. Nabu-zir breathed a sigh of relief. The contract was now binding under the law, and if the contending parties tried to continue their nonsense inside the temple, the priest would put a stop to it, with a stern reminder of the penalties for abrogating a contract with a scribe’s seal on it.
He squinted at the sky. The sun god, Utu-shamash, was at his height, and it was long past time for his midday beer. He signaled to the beer wife plying her trade across the plaza, and she hastened to ladle out a pitcher of her brew and cut a drinking tube for him. But before she could start across the square toward him, a shadow fell across his face; he had another customer standing in front of him.
The newcomer had come alone. He was a young man of good birth in a flounced linen skirt with one end draped across his shoulder. But the skirt was not fresh, and the grime of several days rimmed the hem and flounces. Nabu-zir raised his eyes to the young man’s face and saw red-rimmed eyes and a haggard expression.
Before Nabu-zir could greet him, the young man burst out, “You are the scribe Nabu-zir, who sits in the courtyard of the moon god?”
Nabu-zir replied gravely, “This is the courtyard of Nanna-sin, the moon god and father of Utu-shamash, the sun. And I am Nabu-zir.”
“I am Shamshi-enlil, second son of the merchant Azid-shum,” Nabu-zir’s visitor told him, then stopped, seemingly unsure of himself.
Nabu-zir studied the young Shamshi with awakened interest. Azid-shum was one of the richest men in Ur, with a big house within the shadow of the ziggurat and trading posts as far away as the city of Kish. His skin boats came regularly floating down the twin rivers with their cargoes of lumber, stone, metals, and other precious goods from the northern frontier.
“Everyone in Ur knows the name of Azid-shum,” he said. “Why have you come to me?”
Shamshi-enlil hesitated. “Everyone says you are a fair man,” he said.
Nabu-zir waited.
“Everyone says you are not afraid to take the part of a poor man when an injustice has been done, even to challenge the nu-banda, the chief inspector himself, on behalf of a client.”
Nabu-zir ran his eyes down the elaborate flounced skirt. It bespoke wealth, soiled though it was. “But you are not a poor man,” he said.
Shamshi-enlil’s face fell. The words poured out. “There is in our house a slave named Elutu, who was a farmer upriver near Larsa before he had to sell himself, when he lost his field through taxes. He told me the story of his neighbor, also a farmer, who came near to losing his own field through the actions of the same greedy tax inspector, who made false claims and seized his cattle. No scribe but yourself would deign to write a letter to the king, being afraid of retaliation by the temple administrator. But you did not fear the power of the temple, and through the king’s wrath, the tax collector was removed and the man’s property was restored to him.”
He stopped for breath, then finished in a rush, “This Elutu lamented to me that he had not gone to you before he lost his freedom, and seeing that I too was a victim of injustice, spoke your name to me, though it put him in danger from my brother.”
“So you took the advice of a slave and sought me out,” Nabu-zir said dryly. He cast a pointed glance at the bedraggled garment. “After spending the night walking the street.”
Shamshi-enlil flushed. “For the sake of Anu, god of the great above, will you hear me out or not?”
Nabu-zir grew thoughtful. “I remember the case of your farmer. Come, we will go to my house, away from prying ears.” He gathered up his styluses and whittling knives. “Here, help me to carry this tub of clay.”
* * * *
Nabu-zir’s house was in the waterfront district, nestled among the mud brick hovels that fronted the inner canal. He sent his serving woman, Nindada, to the tavern across the alley to fetch beer. He seated his guest beside the hearth, where he could get a salutary view of the little shrine to the moon god, and sat down facing him. While they waited for the beer, Shamshi had a furtive look round the mud brick interior with its sparse wall decorations.
“Not what you’re used to, eh?” Nabu-zir could not help saying.
The young man mumbled a flustered apology.
“Never mind,” Nabu-zir said. “Not the way you’d expect a scribe to live, but it’s comfortable enough for me.” Out of pity, he decided not to mention the two people buried in funeral urns under the floor, the parents of the previous tenants.
Shamshi was saved from further embarrassment by the arrival of Nindada with two pitchers of beer. He poked a straw through the brewing debris floating on top and took a sip. Nabu-zir did likewise, after piously spilling a few drops on the hearth for the moon god.
“Now then,” Nabu-zir said, settling back comfortably, “what’s this all about?”
“How the thing was done,” the boy said miserably. “That’s what I can’t understand. Is there a wind demon who can penetrate solid clay? Perhaps I need a mashmashu, an exorcist, and not a scribe like yourself.”
Nabu-zir saw that young Shamshi was floundering, his thoughts dashing off in all directions like the wild asses in the proverb, and needed help to tell his story.
“This has something to do with your older brother?” he suggested.
Shamshi nodded gratefully. “Ubar-sin. He has always been wild and unrestrained. My father was so grateful to the gods for his firstborn that he never laid a burden on him, never denied him anything. Ubar-sin was never put to work, never was asked to carry reeds as the young and the little are wont to do or follow the caravans that brought our father wealth. He was given everything he asked for, and he wanted more and so grew up to think even the gods were in debt to him. Our father told him, ‘My son, you have brought me sorrow, have tortured me to the point of madness and death,’ and still Ubar-sin would not mend his ways.”
“And now Ubar-sin has done something to worry your father, is that it? Something that requires an exorcist or a scribe?”
“My father is dead,” Shamshi-enlil said bitterly. “Even as we speak, he is presenting himself to the seven judges of the underworld.”
“Azid-shum, dead?” Nabu-zir said. “And you have come to see a scribe?” It was becoming clear. “Is there something about the inheritance? But I can do nothing about a will that is properly inscribed and attested.”
“That’s what I thought. I was a fool to come here!” Shamshi-enlil stood up abruptly, ready to go.
“Sit down and finish your beer,” Nabu-zir said, “and we will talk.”
* * * *
“...and this fox of a scribe, Puzar-il, when he was finished, read the tablet back to us and enjoined us to sign it with our cylinder seals. Ubar-sin was very angry, so angry that he cursed our father and cursed the very gods. Then he was frightened by the penalty for such recklessness, for our father might have shaved his head, put a slave mark upon him, and sold him. So, though he did not beg forgiveness, he put his seal on the tablet along with mine, thinking to get around our father later. So then Puzar-il inscribed an envelope of clay with a summary of the will and sealed up the tablet.”
Nabu-zir had sent Nindada out twice more for beer, and his young client’s tongue had become sufficiently loosened. Shamshi leaned forward expectantly, waiting for a response.
Nabu-zir pondered the facts of the story for a while, then said, “A successful merchant like your father must have known something of the art of writing. Did he not think to verify the document before signing it?”
“It is true that my father as an educated man had learned something of the art over the years, though of course he never went to the scribe school as a youth, to be whipped into learning by the ummia, like yourself. But the signs he knew were mostly concerned with goods and numbers, so that he could verify receipts and bills of lading and such things. He made a quick examination, and the document must have looked all right to him, with the lists and quantities of the property to be divided. And he trusted Puzar-il. They had done much business together for a long time.”
Nabu-zir pounced on the last statement. “So this fox of a scribe, as you call him, had participated in your father’s dealings before, and doubtless saw to his client’s advantage when making out receipts—” He raised a knowing eyebrow. “—and such things.”
Shamshi looked sheepish, but pretended a flash of anger. “One does not become a big man by being soft. But my father was honest in his dealings.”
“Oh, we can be sure of that. The fines for falsifying a receipt can be ruinous. One could even lose a finger or two.”
Shamshi’s answer was a stubborn silence.
“Besides,” Nabu-zir went on imperturbably, “a fox of a scribe would not leave a trail for the hounds to follow, is that not so? But let us return to the matter of the tablet. Did you notice anything amiss at the time?”
“Me? What would I know?”
It was like leading a stubborn donkey. Nabu-zir waited him out.
“It is true that my father tried to instruct his sons in what he knew of writing so that we might assist him in his business. For a short time he even paid a teacher from the scribe school to come to our house and tutor us. But Ubar-sin could not be taught. He disappeared when the teacher came, or sat in insolence, not listening.”
“But you were different?”
“I learned a little,” Shamshi admitted. “But not much more than my father. I could manage commercial writing, but I could not have managed a letter or read poetry, like the story of Gilgamesh, with any fluency. Besides, I was not given time to do more than glance at the tablet and its envelope before imprinting my seal.”
“And what did your glance tell you?”
“Everything seemed in order. There were the property lists, in columns separated by lines. At the top of each section was a picture sign for my name or Ubar-sin’s, with the wedges that say ahi, the brother sign. The columns for Ubar-sin were very short. Mine were long.”
“So your father intended to disinherit his eldest son and instead make you, the second son, the master of your brother?”
“He was very wroth with Ubar-sin and said he needed a lesson. He said that he would not leave his life’s enterprise and the management of his wife and his household to a spoiled child in the skin of a man. He said several times that day that he saw no other way of making Ubar-sin change his profligate ways. But he held out hope to Ubar-sin that if he were to one day show that he had learned his hard lesson, he would restore his portion.”
Nabu-zir said thoughtfully, “So your father had no notion that he might die anytime soon?”
“No. He wore an amulet against the asaku-demons that cause illness, and though he was a man in the fullness of his years, they did not trouble him.”
“Hmm. But soon after the making of his testament, the goddess of death did, in fact, visit him?”
“Yes. He felt her presence, and called for an ashipu-priest to remove the curse, though the demons had closed his lips to food and water, and sat on his limbs to make them weak. The priest brought a kid, and put him in the bed with my father. He then touched my father’s throat with a wooden knife, and cut the kid’s throat with a knife of bronze. Then he dressed the kid in my father’s clothes and performed the ritual of mourning. But the goddess of death was not deceived, and my father passed away the next morning.”
“What then?”
“We sent for the kalu, the funeral priest, of course, and the proper rites were performed, with a hired lyre player for the dirges. A coffin of clay was made, one befitting my father’s importance and not a reed mat or two jars wrapped together mouth to mouth, as suffices for common folk. He was provided with food and drink for the journey to the nether world and gold to pay the ferryman. And a pit was prepared under the floor for his burial.”
“And his cylinder seal, it was buried with him?”
“Of course. How would he make his declaration to the seven judges without it?”
“And the seal remained around his neck all during the preparations for burial?”
“Where else would it be?” Shamshi was starting to look annoyed.
“Can you swear to that?”
“The body was never left alone,” Shamshi said with strained patience. “If I was busy, there was always a servant or the priest or a dependent.”
“Did your brother not help during this time of grief?”
Shamshi gave a great sigh. “He could not be found. He was ever one to evade his responsibilities. Perhaps he returned at night to sleep, but if so, he was gone before dawn.”
“So though you were the second son, and the will that elevated you had not been opened yet, all the preparations were left to you?”
“Yes. I am used to Ubar-sin’s ways.”
“And when did you see him again?”
“Not until the third day, after my father had been buried. And then he immediately insisted that we go before a judge for the opening of the will. He seemed very eager.”
“Did that not strike you as odd? After all, the will disinherited him. If what you say is true, he knew that.”
“Who ever knew what Ubar-sin was thinking? He did not think. He was like a moth that flies into the flame. Even as a child he would often act to do himself harm.”
“And you had other things on your mind,” Nabu-zir said sympathetically.
“Yes.”
“Let us go on. So you went before a judge of the inheritance court to have the envelope broken and the will read. I assume that Puzar-il was present, and took the usual oath, knowing the terrible penalties for perjury.”
“Yes.”
“And the original witnesses. Were they present?”
“One had died. The other attested to the authenticity of his seal impression on the tablet.”
“And his impression on the envelope as well?”
“The envelope was displayed to the court before Puzar-il was given leave to break it, and the witness raised no objection. What does it matter? All the seals on the tablet were authentic.”
“Including yours?”
Shamshi bit his lip. “Yes.”
“Can you be sure?”
“My seal cannot be mistaken,” Shamshi said. “It was carved in marble by the finest craftsman, and shows the rising of the sun god and his bride, Aya, the dawn. Attending them is the goddess of love and war, Inanna, and Enki with his fish, and the creation goddess Aruru, with many, many details. There was even a tiny crumb of clay at the tip of one of Inanna’s wings that I remembered from when I rolled the seal over the tablet.”
“Was it the same seal I see hanging from your neck now?”
“Yes, it is the same seal I have worn all my life.”
Nabu-zir eyed the little cylinder thoughtfully, as though he had never seen one before. It was a tiny thing to hold a person’s identity, no larger than his little finger. It hung from a thin gold chain which passed through a hole that had been drilled lengthwise through the marble.
“Did it leave your neck at any time between your father’s death and the reading of the will?”
“No.”
“Even at night?”
“No, I slept with it.”
Nabu-zir nodded approvingly. So did he. So did most people. One’s identity was a precious thing.
“It comes down to this so far,” he asserted. “The seals on the tablet cannot be doubted, not even yours. And yet you say the terms of the will had been altered.”
Despair contorted Shamshi’s youthful features. “Where my name had been, my brother’s was inscribed. Where my brother’s name had been, my name was. The laws of disherison were clearly etched, as they had been before. But now they applied to me, not Ubar-sin.” He buried his face in his hands. “The thing that was hardest to bear was that now all the reproaches that my father had meant for Ubar-sin—that he had brought him sorrow, that he had driven him to the point of death—were now laid at my feet instead. The judge looked at me with loathing when he announced his decree.”
Nabu-zir gave the young man a moment to compose himself, then said, “It is possible to smooth wet clay with one’s thumb and rewrite a word or two, you know. I have done it myself many times. Even after the surface has begun to harden a little, one may sprinkle a little water on the spot to soften it and perhaps rub in a little fresh clay. It is not possible after the tablet has begun to shrink within its envelope, though for a day or two, if the sealed tablet has been kept out of the sun, I suppose the thing might be done.”
An expression that might have been the beginning of hope flickered across Shamshi-enlil’s face. Nabu-zir continued, his brow wrinkled in thought.
“But the tablet was wrapped up in its envelope, and all its seals were intact. So we must look instead to the envelope. Everyone had a look at the writing on the envelope before it was smashed, though I suppose the judge did not bother to read it through, other than to verify its subject matter. Were the same seals in place?”
“Yes, all of them.”
“Yours, your brother’s, your father’s, the two witnesses, and, of course, the scribe’s, Puzar-il’s. Did you yourself verify them?”
“Once I realized that the will had been altered, I reexamined the seals on the tablet itself very carefully and could see no reason to doubt them. By now the judge was becoming impatient, but before the temple janitor could sweep up the fragments of the envelope, I picked through them to find the seals.”
“That was intelligent of you. Your clear thinking after such a blow is commendable. What did you ascertain?”
“I saved the fragments, much good will it do me.”
Shamshi fumbled at his garment and drew out a small linen packet that had been tied up with a knot. Nabu-zir untied the bundle and spread its contents on the table.
“This imprint shows Enki, the god of learning,” he said, holding up one of the larger fragments. “I take it that this is the mark of the scribe, Puzar-il.”
Shamshi confirmed it with a nod.
Nabu-zir held up another shard. He paused for a moment to admire the exquisite detail. It showed, among other things, a donkey caravan, trains of skin boats, bursting storehouses, all being blessed by a whole pantheon of gods.
“And this,” he said dryly, “will be the seal of your esteemed father, Azid-shum?”
The young man made a sign of respect. “You are correct, Nabu-zir.”
“And this one?” he said, holding up a third fragment.
Shamshi said, without bothering to look more closely, “It belongs to my brother.”
“And where is your seal?”
Shamshi sifted through some of the smaller fragments and pushed three of them into rough alignment. “There,” he said.
“You can tell?”
“Everything is as it should be. The tree of life, the fish god, the blessed Inanna.”
“And yet the images do not seem quite as sharp to these tired eyes. Or am I mistaken.”
“Perhaps the impressions crumbled a bit at the edges when the clay split. Or perhaps I was not quite as careful when I rolled my cylinder across the clay.”
“Perhaps,” Nabu-zir allowed. He picked up the remaining intact shard. “And this one?”
“It belonged to the dead witness. An old friend of my father’s.”
“Convenient,” he said. “He is not here to dispute it.” He squinted at the jagged piece of clay. “This one seems the slightest bit blurred, too, in a couple of spots. What about the other witness?”
Shamshi shoved the few remaining fragments into alignment. Nabu-zir saw a conventional scene of a new year’s celebration, with a procession of naked priests filing up the ramp of the ziggurat with their offerings, and the sacred coupling of the god and goddess reenacted by the high priest and the high priestess.
“A pious man,” Nabu-zir remarked. “Also an old friend of your father’s?”
“A household retainer. Buzu by name. He was one of those charged with our management as boys, and I am sorry to say he often turned a blind eye to Ubar-sin’s escapades.”
“But not to yours?”
“No. He was ever quick to use the stick. And when the reading of the will made it clear that Ubar-sin is to be the master, he began to show me disrespect. He laughed when Ubar-sin threatened to put the slave mark on me and sell me, as a father is entitled to do. Perhaps it was a joke, but I am afraid to go home.”
Nabu-zir stood up. “You will stay here for the time being,” he said decisively. “My servant Nindada will see to your needs. I will put my seal on the doorpost, that no one may enter while I am gone. I think I had better see this scribe, Puzar-il.”
* * * *
He found Puzar-il’s spot after making inquiries in the bazaar. A slave, a scruffy boy with pimples on his face, was scraping a residue of dried clay off the bricks and gathering a stool and sunshade and other possessions in a small pile.
“My master is not here,” the boy said in an insolent tone. “He has gone home.”
“And where might your master’s home be?” Nabu-zir said.
The boy scanned Nabu-zir’s unassuming costume. “That is not for any tablet-writing dub-sar to know,” he said and turned away.
Nabu-zir said mildly, “Dub-sar I may be, boy. And you must surely be the donkey that eats its own bedding to speak that way to a freeman. It is a strange slave indeed who does not know where his master lives. Show me the tag that lists the name of your owner, that I may be sure you are not a runaway, to be reported to the patrol.”
The boy’s hand darted reflexively to the little clay tablet he wore around his neck. “My master lives in a house a few paces from the first eastern gate,” he said sullenly. “It may be recognized by a niche next to the door containing an image of Nabu, the god of scribes. If he knows you learned it from me, I will be beaten.”
“I will not tell him,” Nabu-zir said.
“If he is not there,” the boy volunteered, “you may find him at the shop of Lugal-kan, the seal maker, in the next street.”
Nabu-zir thanked him and set off for the city’s eastern wall. It was a long walk in the sun; though the afternoon had advanced, the coolness of evening had yet to arrive.
He found the house with little trouble. The image of Nabu was where the boy said it would be, larger than most such effigies and painted in garish colors. There was no rope end with clay seal barring the door, so Puzar-il was at home.
He planted himself in front of the door, and without raising his voice, said, “Puzar-il, I wish to see you.”
There was no response, though he could hear voices within, so he repeated himself.
After an interval, the door opened to the width of a man’s hand, and a large brute with the shaven head of a slave said, “Go away.”
Before the door could be closed, Nabu-zir said, letting his voice carry, “You are not very courteous to a fellow scribe, Puzar-il. I thought the two of us might have had a collegial discussion of the amazing testament of the late Azid-shum.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment, then a voice from within said grudgingly, “Let him in.”
The burly door slave stepped aside, and Nabu-zir entered. The first thing that struck him was the rich aroma of roasting pork and pungent spices wafting in from the rear courtyard. Two female slaves were bustling around a table laden with dishes of delicacies and painted drinking vessels with gold straws. A large footed harp adorned with a golden bull’s head rested in a corner, presumably left there by the musician who would entertain during the banquet.
Nabu-zir’s eyes leapt to the corpulent man sitting on a gilded chair in the center of it all. “I see you have become prosperous, Puzar-il,” he said.
“I was always prosperous, Nabu-zir,” Puzar-il said sourly. “Not like you.”
“I see you know who I am.”
“You are the pestilential fellow who writes letters to kings and otherwise stirs up trouble.”
“As we were taught in scribe school, we are enjoined by the goddess Nanshe to protect the poor from the rich, to seek justice for the orphan and widow, to see that the man of one shekel does not fall prey to the man of one mina.”
“Worthy sentiments for schoolboys,” Puzar-il sneered. “But one learns that there is a real world.”
“Worthy sentiments that are esconced in law,” Nabu-zir said mildly. “That is why there are punishments for those who, as Nanshe says, substitute a small weight for a large weight, who substitute a small measure for a large measure, who take the possessions of another through trickery.”
Puzar-il’s jowls worked. He said tightly, “The testament of Azid-shum is not at all amazing. He left the greater portion of his legacy to his eldest son, as is common. The seals were in place, including the seal of the younger son, and a judge of the temple read the tablet.”
“And yet the younger son says the tablet that he put his seal to gave him the greater portion.”
Puzar-il heaved a great sigh. “You and I have heard such claims before. The young pup was unhappy with his share, and thought to better it.”
“I have heard that it was the older pup who was unhappy with the will when it was inscribed, and showed his anger. He had to be coerced by his father to sign the tablet and its envelope, and he took it badly.”
“Where are the witnesses who would testify to such a thing, other than the young pup who was disinherited? Where are the signed documents that would confirm it? You are playing a dangerous game, Nabu-zir. The prize is the death penalty.”
“I make no accusations, Puzar-il. I am just asking questions.”
“You have asked enough questions. Leave, or my man will throw you out. I will gladly pay the fine for any injuries.”
“What, Puzar-il? You are not going to invite me to your banquet to help you celebrate your newfound wealth?”
Puzar-il’s bloated face turned purple. The oversize slave took a step toward Nabu-zir. Nabu-zir looked at him coldly and said, “Stay where you are, fellow.”
The man took a step back. Nabu-zir gathered his garment about him and, with a nod to Puzar-il, unhurriedly left.
* * * *
The shop of Lugal-kan, the seal carver, was in the next street, as the boy had said, next to a rather disreputable-looking tavern. It consisted of little more than a cluttered workbench under a seedy awning, not the tidy establishment that Nabu-zir would have expected of a free artisan.
The man squatting at the bench looked up warily at his approach. He was a scrawny fellow with the one-eyed squint of someone who has done much close work over a long period of time.
There was something else about his face that interested Nabu-zir: a faded rough patch on his forehead where a slave mark might have been removed. If so, the man might have good reason to be wary of strangers. He would have been questioned by busybodies many times through the years. The law decreed the death penalty for illegally removing the slave mark, both for the runaway slave and the person who performed the operation, unless he could prove that he had been deceived into believing that the slave had been legally manumitted.
“Ah, Lugal-kan,” Nabu-zir said genially. “I was told I might find you here.”
The fellow looked at him suspiciously. “And who might it be who told you that?” he said.
Nabu-zir lowered his voice, as though they had a secret in common. “Why, my fellow scribe, the estimable Puzar-il.”
At the mention of Puzar-il’s name, a peculiar expression that might have been fear flashed across the seal maker’s face and disappeared so quickly that Nabu-zir could not be sure that he had seen it.
“What is it that you wish of me?” the man asked cautiously.
Nabu-zir lowered his voice again. “What else but a seal? Puzar-il had great praise for your skill and artistry.”
That provoked a snappish outburst. “It is not Puzar-il’s custom to praise anyone for anything. Rather it is his way to find fault and threaten.”
Nabu-zir had decided that the seal maker was not a crony of Puzar-il, as he had thought, but rather someone over whom Puzar-il had some kind of hold. “And yet,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “he praised you as a man of discretion. He said that I need have no fears about trusting you.”
Apparently that struck the right note. Lugal-kan leaned forward and said, “Perhaps we had better talk inside,” and Nabu-zir knew that he had been provisionally admitted to the circle of scoundrels.
He followed Lugal-kan into the mud-brick hovel behind the awning. Lugal-kan closed the door behind them and cast a furtive look around the place, as if to assure himself that some mischief-making demon had not flown in ahead of them.
Nabu-zir took stock of his surroundings. The single room was mean and shabby. A smell of stale beer hung in the air, and the only food he could see in the larder was an open sack of grain bearing the label of the ordinary citizen’s ration, as well as a few onions and a couple of discs of unleavened bread. But the workbench was another story. The array of sculpting tools beggared the meager equipage outside, and there was an ample supply of marble and other fine stone. Evidently this was where Lugal-kan did his real work, out of public view.
He was careful not to specify anything specifically illegal and so risk scaring Lugal-kan off. “I need to reproduce a cylinder seal that I have lost,” he said in a confidential tone. “An old client entrusted me with it because he did not want to weary himself with the business of personally certifying some hundreds of petty declarations of produce from his agricultural holdings. And now he wishes his cylinder back, and I cannot put him off much longer.”
Lugal-kan sized him up with his squinty eye. “This cylinder would go to its rightful owner? Not to be used by someone else?”
“I swear by all the gods, Lugal-kan, that nothing would be done with the cylinder that would attract the attention of the super-intendant of the inspection, the agrig, or his policeman. Though I must say that my client is very wealthy, and the temptation would be great, if one were foolish.”
The seal maker still seemed hesitant, so Nabu-zir threw him another fish. “Of course, as we both know, if there is any profit to be made from this, Puzar-il will get the lion’s share.”
From the play of expressions on Lugal-kan’s face, Nabu-zir could see all the little thoughts darting back and forth like minnows. After a pause, Lugal-kan said, “There is no seal carver better than I in all the land of the two rivers. I learned my art in Eridu, and was renowned there, until circumstances forced me to flee to Ur. But even a talent like mine cannot ensure that some small imperfection might not be noticed by a seal’s owner. Particularly when I would not have the seal itself to copy, but only an impression made by it.”
“My client is old, with weak eyes, and the seal was worn from years of use. Besides, he is a little foolish, and not inclined to notice things.”
Greed struggled with caution in Lugal-kan’s scarred face. He said, “The gods are my witness that I have not agreed to do anything to falsify a contract, but only to perform a service for a seal’s rightful owner. The burden is on you.”
“You will not be sorry, Lugal-kan. Your reward will be great.”
The little man became brisk. “You will bring me one of the tablets with the imprint of the seal on it. Bring the one with the clearest impressions, and if there is any doubt, bring me two or three.”
“You will have them tomorrow.”
Lugal-kan was anxious to get rid of him now, but Nabu-zir wandered over to the workbench as if by curiosity and picked up one of the unfinished cylinders that were lying there.
“This promises to be a fine work of art,” he said, pretending admiration. “I can see why Puzar-il relies on you.” But while he spoke, his eyes searched the bench and its surroundings. There was a little spouted tin pot resting on a small brazier, and next to it, some chunks of wax and an untidy heap of flattened fragments to be remelted.
The little sculptor was at his side in an instant, his hand outstretched. “Give me that!”
Nabu-zir made as if to hand it over, but contrived to drop it before the other could snatch it from him. Lugal-kan immediately scrambled to pick it up, and while he was distracted, Nabu-zir managed to palm a few of the wax fragments and tuck them into a fold of his garment.
“Forgive me, Lugal-kan,” he said. “I did not mean to disturb your work. I will bring you the tablets tomorrow.”
He took his time sauntering to the door, to feed the man’s irritation and further distract him. When he was past a bend in the narrow street and could be sure he was out of sight, he paused to examine the wax segments he had palmed. They contained fractured images of the sort that might be found in the imprint of any cylinder seal, except that they were in bas relief, not incised.
None of them were of particular interest, except to confirm what he had already deduced. Except for one. Nabu-zir thanked the gods for his luck. He held the wax segment up to the waning sunlight to be sure. Though the images were incomplete, they plainly showed part of a frieze featuring the ascending sun god and his bride, attended by several other gods. There was Inanna with her bow, and though Enki, the fish god, was not visible, it was clear from a levitating stream of fish that he had been present in the part of the frieze that was broken off.
But the clincher was a tiny imperfection: a minute fleck at the tip of one of Inanna’s wings that must have originally been an unwanted crumb of clay. It was welcome evidence. It insured that the accuser in what might turn out to be a capital case would not himself be put to death.
Nabu-zir set his lips in a tight line and tucked the wax fragment away safely, for now it contained his own life. He quickened his stride and headed for home.
* * * *
When he reached his waterfront house, the light was already growing dim, and some of the bazaar merchants were beginning to fold their awnings. He frowned when he saw his door. The rope end with the gob of clay bearing his seal was hanging loose. Trespass was a serious crime in Ur, and not lightly risked except by the stupid and the ruthless.
He pushed open the door, afraid of what he might find. Shamshi was gone, an overturned chair attesting to a struggle. Nindada was huddled in a corner, her garment in disarray. She lifted a bruised face to him, blood still trickling down her forehead from a cut in her scalp.
“They came and took him, lord,” she said. “He fought, but there were three of them.”
He helped her to her feet and sat her down in a chair. She made no complaint about her injuries, as another might have done in her place. Nindada had lived a hard life and was glad of it when he had rescued her from the temple’s wool factory where she worked as an indentured weaver amidst a throng of other underfed women and children. In return she had given him her unswerving loyalty and, more to the point, an unexpected resourcefulness that eased his daily life.
“Who was it?” he asked.
She clutched at his arm. “One was his brother. I heard him use the word ahi. He was the leader.”
“And the others?”
“One I took to be a free household servant. I heard him called Buzu. He had an arrogance above his station. After they bound the young man’s hands, they taunted him, saying he would soon learn what it was to be a slave. The third was an ox of a man, the sort whose value is his strength.” For the first time her voice wavered. “I’m sorry, lord. I could do nothing to stop them.”
He patted her arm. “You need not trouble yourself, Nindada. You have done well. Tend to your wounds. You have leave to use the salve from the alabaster jar, which was made with the most expensive ingredients and compounded with powerful incantations. Then rest.”
He went to the chest where he kept the weapons he had collected over the years and selected a bronze dagger he had confiscated from a murderer, hiding it under the shoulder drape of his garment. On second thought, he added a stout cudgel, which he could carry openly. The wax segment he had stolen from Lugal-kan, he hid at the bottom of the chest.
He paused at the door to look back. Nindada was already straightening things up, righting the overturned chair. Nabu-zir shook his head and stepped out into the night.
* * * *
The assistant administrator, Lu-inanna, was annoyed at being disturbed after sunset, when he was looking forward to relaxing over a jar of beer or two with some of his temple cronies.
“Really, Nabu-zir,” he said, “aren’t you being a little overzealous about some misunderstanding in an inheritance case? Can’t it wait until morning?”
Nabu-zir stood his ground. “I tell you, Lu-inanna, a murder has been committed. And another murder might take place while we are standing here arguing.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? The penalty for a false accusation of murder is death for the accuser himself.”
“I am sure. And if that is not reason enough for you to act, there is the matter of the housebreaking and the beating of my servant.”
“Come now. The penalty for inflicting an injury is only a small fine if the victim is a servant or a slave. Likewise the penalty for unlawful entry.”
“If you wish to split hairs, Lu-inanna, the penalty for trespass by a day is a fine, but death if by night. And the sun had already set. So you already have a capital case.”
Lu-inanna sighed. “Really, my overexcitable friend...”
“Or must I go to the high priest and tell him that nothing was done while a crime against the state and against the gods was being committed?”
“All right, all right! Give me a few minutes to find the chief constable.”
“We’ll need a few armed men. And a torch bearer.”
“Enough, Nabu-zir! Does the dog teach the lion to hunt?”
“And I’ll need a warrant.”
“Write it yourself while you are waiting.”
Despite the assistant administrator’s show of indifference, four burly patrolmen and a torch bearer were found in less time than it takes water to boil. The patrolmen wore leather helmets and carried short spears, looking impressive enough for his purpose. Nabu-zir strode at their head, just behind the torch bearer, carrying his cudgel. The clay warrant, still soft, was tucked next to his skin along with the bronze dagger.
They marched through the silent and deserted streets of Ur past row after row of blank mud-brick walls, each house marked only by the single arched door that gave access to the foyer and the courtyards within. Only the distant flicker of an occasional torch or lamp signaled the presence of others with business abroad.
Nabu-zir halted them at the door to the merchant’s house. There was nothing to distinguish it from the less affluent houses on either side, except that, from the distance between doors, it could be seen to be wider.
He tapped softly, not wanting to alarm the doorkeeper within. The door opened a crack and he immediately pushed past the doorkeeper, the patrolmen right behind him. The man tried to flee but was caught and held by one of the patrolmen before he could raise the alarm.
“Do not try to flee, and do not shout for help,” Nabu-zir warned him. “This is temple business.”
He produced a warrant and read it aloud. The man reacted with incomprehension, but the sight of the temple seal frightened him into compliance. Nabu-zir left one of the patrolmen to guard him, and led the others through the lobby and into the courtyard.
The whitewashed walls of the surrounding complex rose above them, bordered by a continuous wooden gallery that supported an upper story. Nabu-zir made a beeline for the door to the central hall, with the policemen pounding along behind him, and burst through to an evil scene. Young Shamshi-enlil was bound to a chair, with three menacing figures looming over him. A glowing brazier stood on a nearby stand, with a branding iron heating in it.
There was an arrested moment before the three were aware of the intruders, then they turned to face Nabu-zir and his escort. Nabu-zir could tell at a glance which one of them was Shamshi’s brother, Ubar-sin, and he recognized the other two from Nindada’s description.
“What villainy is this?” Ubar-sin shouted, and the big one, the ox, made a move toward a battle-ax that was leaning against a table. Nabu-zir raised his cudgel, but the policemen were also raising their weapons, and the man thought better of it.
“The villainy is yours, Ubar-sin,” Nabu-zir said, “and you have been found out.”
Ubar-sin spoke with contained rage. “A father may sell his children as slaves, and my father’s will made me the father of my brother.”
“You and the scribe you bribed with a promise of a share of the riches falsified the will, and when the judges of the assembly render their verdict, it is your brother who will be your father, to dispose of you at his pleasure. But he will not get the chance to sell you, for the court will decide the punishment for all your crimes. Including, I believe, the murder of your father.”
Ubar-sin turned ashen. “Who are you, to speak to me like that?” he said.
Nabu-zir produced the clay tablet and held it up. “Shall I read you the warrant, Ubar-sin? This time there is no dishonest scribe to change it to your liking.”
He motioned to one of the policemen, who came forward and cut Shamshi loose. “Thank the gods that they saw fit to send you here in time,” Shamshi said shakily. “They were about to mark me as a slave. Buzu wanted me killed. He said it would be safer, that no question would ever come up that way. But my brother said it would do to sell me to one of the northern caravans, that I would never be seen again.”
Nabu-zir turned to Buzu. “You were going to be made rich too. Rich enough to contemplate murder, it seems. What was your part in this? Were you the one who poisoned your master, Azid-shum? Did you steal the old man’s seal after he was dead, long enough for Ubar-sin to take it to his bought scribe to provide a stamp on a new envelope?”
All of Buzu’s cockiness was gone. “I did not poison my master,” he said sullenly.
“No one will care if yours was not the hand itself. You will be sentenced anyway, as an accomplice.”
He turned to Ubar-sin again. “How did you poison your father, elder brother? What did you use? Mandrake? Nightshade? Some concoction bought in a thieves’ den, sprinkled in your father’s evening tipple? It doesn’t matter. We will find out.”
“None of this can be proved. And there is no voice to speak out.”
“Dumb objects always have a voice, Ubar-sin. And they have already spoken out.”
An excited chittering of voices could be heard from beyond the hall from the servants, who had become aware that something was going on, but who did not dare intrude. But the three patrolmen had shifted their attention to the archway behind Nabu-zir, and he turned his head to see. The fourth man, the one he had left with the night doorman, was coming through the arch, gripping a household slave firmly by the elbow.
“This one is named Elutu,” he said. “He has something to tell you.”
It was Shamshi who spoke first. “Elutu, you were the one who spoke the name of Nabu-zir to me!” he cried, his voice breaking with emotion. “The goddess Nanshe must have spoken in your ear, for he has brought me justice! As justice will be brought for you! I swear it!”
“You can let go of him,” Nabu-zir said to the patrolman. “He will not run away.”
“He came to me in the door chamber, babbling his head off,” the patrolman said stiffly. “I thought it my duty to bring him to you, since it was no longer necessary to hold the watchman.”
“You acted with commendable initiative,” Nabu-zir assured him, “and I will say so to the chief constable.” He turned to address Elutu, who was rubbing his elbow and quivering with a desire to speak. “You saw something, but you were afraid to speak before, is that it?” he said.
Ubar-sin, his face livid, tried to rush forward, and had to be restrained by a policeman. “You will not speak against your master!” he shouted. “I will punish you!”
“You are my master no longer,” the slave said defiantly. He advanced toward Nabu-zir, his chin up like a free man. “I was one of those assigned to watch the body of Azid-shum before the burial. I was alone with him during the night, and I saw his cylinder seal around his neck, as always. While the household slept, this one—” He nodded toward Ubar-sin. “—who had not been seen all day, crept into the house and ordered me out of the chamber. When I heard him leave the house again, I went back. At first I noticed nothing, but then I saw that the cylinder seal was gone. The same thing happened the next night, and this time the seal was back around Azid-shum’s neck.”
“You will testify to that before the judges?”
“Yes, Nabu-zir.”
Ubar-sin went wild, and tried to break free. The guard quelled him with a rap on the side of the head.
Unperturbed, Nabu-zir continued: “Doubtless we will find other servants able to tell us more about the circumstances surrounding Azid-shum’s death. Such as the symptoms pointing to a poisoning rather than a visit by a demon sent by the goddess of death.”
“They will be afraid to talk, lord.”
“They will have nothing to fear,” young Shamshi said, stepping forward. “I will see to that.”
* * * *
“...and so,” Nabu-zir summed up, “only two of the seals had to be forged on the envelope—those of the disinherited Shamshi-enlil and the surviving witness. The envelope, as usual, got only a cursory look before being smashed, and in case there might be any question of Shamshi-enlil demanding a closer look after the will was opened, that impious scribe Puzar-il had cleverly started a crack in those two spots to ensure that those seal impressions could not be whole. All the seals on the will itself, of course, were authentic.”
The great assembly hall was packed to bursting with the free citizens of Ur, and hundreds more who could not be squeezed inside were milling about restlessly in the outer plaza. Because of the overriding importance of the trial, the judges had decreed that a full council of the citizenry would be involved in deciding the case. There was an oft-quoted proverb: “Do not wander into the Assembly to be drawn into other people’s quarrels, and risk being forced to testify in a lawsuit not your own.” But the sensational nature of the Shamshi-enlil case had drawn even the uninvolved and wary to the assembly hall.
The defendants were grouped together in front of the judges’ raised thrones, guarded by spearmen. There were four of them: Ubar-sin and his principal accomplice Puzar-il in the fore, and the two henchmen, Buzu and the ox, in the second rank. The seal carver himself, Lugal-kan, had fled the city as soon as he had heard that Puzar-il had been arrested, probably to hide in Eridu. It didn’t matter. All the cities of the plain cooperated in returning fugitives, and eventually Lugal-kan would be brought back to Ur for arraignment. What did matter was that in his haste he had left behind enough evidence to show how the fraud had been committed.
The evidence was on display on an offering table from the temple, a gilded platform that was usually laden with the daily tribute of grain and other commodities. Today, for all the crowd to see, it held the brazier and tin pot that had been used in the forgeries along with one of the forged seals that Lugal-kan had failed to dispose of, the wax fragments that Nabu-zir had stolen, and the clay shards that Shamshi had had wit enough to retrieve.
The crowning piece of evidence was the clay tablet itself, with its smoothed-over and rewritten names. The names had been altered skillfully enough so that the deception could not, in all honesty, be detected, but Nabu-zir had made effective use of it in his summing-up, holding it up before the indignant crowd and whipping up their emotions.
He held the tablet up for a last reminder of what the trial was about, but it was unnecessary for him to speak. A murmur of outrage spread through the crowd, and a stocky citizen at the front said, “To change a document after it has been sealed is a crime against the gods, worse than murder, and murder has been done here as well! Even a judge of the temple may be punished if he changes his judgment after it has been inscribed on clay!”
There was a cacophony of voices as others sought to speak. Nabu-zir replaced the tablet and settled back to wait. It was going to take hours, but the verdict was not in doubt.
* * * *
Nabu-zir and Shamshi-enlil were enjoying a beer together and discussing the events of the previous day, when Nindada came hurrying in from the vestibule, where she had been sweeping away the morning’s dust.
“Lord,” she said, a little out of breath, “the inspector Lu-inanna just turned the corner down the street and is headed this way. He is bearing an armful of tablets. I cannot deny him entrance. What shall I do?”
“Do not trouble yourself, Nindada,” Nabu-zir said. “Doubtless he has come here to gloat. He will be taking credit for bringing Puzar-il and the others to justice. Go across to the tavern and fetch a jar of beer for him. And bring back more beer for us as well.”
She hurried out, leaving her broom. Nabu-zir turned to Shamshi and said, “He will be asking a large offering for the temple now that you are rich,” he said.
“He will have it,” Shamshi said. “The gods created man to support them.”
“Ah, yes,” Nabu-zir said. “We support them, and they support us. That is why we have daily offerings and monthly offerings, and offerings in between.”
“As to the slave, Elutu, he shall be a farmer again. I am freeing him and will see to it that he is given back his field.”
“Meaning a generous offering to the temple.”
“Yes. It is the least I can do for him. I am in his debt for sending me to you. He is a brave man.”
“He will have to be brave. The temple’s tax collector will want a third of his crop.”
Lu-inanna chose that moment to enter. If he had heard the remark he gave no sign. Nabu-zir went on smoothly, “Ah, here is Lu-inanna now. You can discuss the matter with him.”
Lu-inanna deposited his load of tablets on the table and sat down heavily. “And what matter is that, Nabu-zir?” he said.
Shamshi interposed a reply: “I wish to buy back a field that was confiscated by a tax collector, so that its owner will not have to pay rent to the temple in addition to his crop tax.”
Lu-inanna manufactured a smile. “It is good to see you looking so prosperous, Shamshi-enlil. We shall have to name you Lugal-Shamshi now that you are a great man. I presume that this is about that slave of yours.”
“He is a slave no longer,” Shamshi said.
“Under the code of Nanshi, outright ownership of land is permitted,” Nabu-zir pointed out.
“Ah, our scribe is now a legal scholar,” Lu-inanna shot back. To Shamshi he said, “Come round to the temple tomorrow and we will discuss it.”
Nabu-zir tilted his head toward the pile of tablets on the table. “What have you brought me, Lu-inanna?” he said. “More payroll lists to be copied?”
“Something more interesting, Nabu-zir. A record of yesterday’s trial, on eleven numbered tablets. We will need many copies. One for the legal library, another for the judges of the assembly, others for the libraries at Kish and Uruk and Eridu. It will keep you busy for many days.”
“Yes,” Nabu-zir mused. “It will be consulted for years to come.”
“A warning to all those who might seek to steal someone else’s name. All four will be put to death. We cannot have such a thing. Ur itself might fall.”
“And what of the fifth, the sculptor of the seals?”
“He did not get far. He was intercepted on his way to Eridu. But he will not be tried here in Ur. We will have to send him back to Eridu. It seems he had a mark on his forehead. He had it removed by some scoundrel doctor. Not a slave mark. It said, ‘A fugitive, arrest him.’ He will face charges enough in Eridu.”
“One can almost feel sorry for him. Eridu is not as merciful as Ur. They will make an example of him.”
Nindada arrived with the beer, and further talk broke off. After a sip, with Nindada still in the room, Lu-inanna said slyly, “Your servant is very handsome, though not young. The temple should never have let her go. Will you sell her?”
“She is not for sale,” Nabu-zir said. “Her freedom was written in clay when I bought her debt, and she has the tablet to prove it.”