The Whore of Babylon

Chapter 21

It was time.

'The Lady Eliana,' the herald announced, 'Sekrutu to His Royal Highness Samsu, Prince of Babylon, Lugal of Nippur.'

Sekrutu. Her new name – meaning harem woman, it was no less a barb than karkittu. Samsu still called her by his insulting pet name in private, but Sekrutu would be her title for in public.

After two and a half months of marriage, of enduring his attentions almost every night, she was finally ready to tell him. She would announce it in public, to save the news spreading by palace gossips. She smoothed the violet silk of her gown over her hips, wincing as she brushed a new bruise – another token of Samsu's affections.

Walking slowly, with as much dignity as she could muster, she held her head high and ignored the venomous stares from Susa, in her seat next to Samsu, and Ani and the Brute as they stood off to one side of the dais. Ashan stood with them, trying to keep his face expressionless as he watched her.

She approached the throne and knelt before it, waiting for permission to speak.

'You may rise,' Samsu sounded bored. He chafed against the inactivity of governance – he preferred to be out on the battlefield, leading an army. His was a mind for strategy, not mundane matters of politics.

Eliana lifted her forehead from the ground and stood slowly, bringing her head up last. It would not do to have a dizzy spell before him if she stood up too quickly.

'I am with child,' she said, loudly and clearly. Her words had the desired effect – Samsu's eyes lit up, while Susa's face contorted as though she sucked a lemon. Ani merely scowled, her expression a perfect reflection of the Brute's.

Ashan's face remained bland, but it felt as though he had just taken a blade to the gut. He had lost her forever. She was truly Samsu's now – she carried a piece of him within her, and when she gave birth, she would forget she had ever loved Ashan; all her love would be for the child.

Samsu nodded. 'You shall be moved to bigger rooms, nearer my own, along with your maidservant and my daughters.'

'Thank you, sir.' Eliana inclined her head, and Samsu waved his hand to dismiss her. She moved to the edge of the room, standing with the other petitioners whose business was concluded.

She took a keen interest in the Nippurites as they came and went with their problems – this one disputed a piece of land with his neighbour, while that one complained that the price of bread had risen too high to feed his family, and another begged a position within the palace for his son. The queue seemed endless.

Her mind worked rapidly through the problems as she heard them, throwing out solutions and compromises, though she kept her tongue still. If Samsu wanted her advice, he would ask for it in private, well away from any who might construe it as weakness. Sometimes he would resolve a matter in exactly the way that she would have, and sometimes he would make it worse with an unfeeling and unsympathetic response. Occasionally, his decreed 'justice' made her physically bite her tongue – she must not interfere, however unfair he seemed.  She wished with all her heart that she might be able to sit up there on the throne in his place, protecting the people from him as Enlil never had.

When an unfortunate, half-starved man with wild hair and wilder eyes was dragged in behind a farmer, her heart went out to him. He had attempted to steal a goat, been tried and found guilty, and had nothing with which to pay the fine.

Samsu condemned him to death, according to his father's code of law. In doing so, he also condemned the man's family to death, for they would surely starve.