Though the city no longer belonged to her people, Eliana found solace in it after her sister’s departure.
With no company in the house but the servants, it felt vast and empty. Without her sister to share her joys and cares, to brighten the rooms with her laughter, the place was a yawning chasm that swallowed any happiness Eliana might have felt there.
Desperate to make herself useful somehow, she began going with her father to the civic offices during the day to see if she could help with any small tasks. He tasked her with listening to the complaints of the cityfolk and giving him a report of their concerns.
She soon discovered a talent for listening. But more than that, she really cared – her father had devoted his life to making their city a better place, and she was determined to do the same.
Not content with waiting for the cityfolk to come to her with their problems, she started going out into the city herself. Every day she visited traders and farmers, walked the roads and canals, visited the slums. Seeing the city first-hand, she found, she could be of much more use to her father – reporting where taxes would be best spent, and assessing where the people were most in need.
During her visits to the slums, an orphan girl of about her own age had approached her to beg for food. She had been left destitute after the conquest, and was the only surviving member of her family. Her parents and brothers had been killed, leaving her to fend for herself, no better than the scrawny wild cats that roamed the streets.
Eliana took pity on the girl – agreeing to give her a daily meal in exchange for help and company on her daily tours of the city. Mari turned out to be invaluable – her knowledge of the streets and communities was far more detailed than Eliana’s. She was able to take Eliana up a narrow alley and bring her out in a place that would otherwise have been a walk of four streets.
The two girls worked hard, traipsing the city all day – Mari to earn her dinner, Eliana in the hopes of exhausting herself enough to sleep at night. Nippur was crowded. A constant haze of dust hung over the city centre, kicked up by hundreds of sandalled feet. A thousand scents seasoned the air – rich spices from the east mingled with new leather, and the stink of the beasts of burden who carried the goods mixed with the distinctive smell of the unwashed. On the busiest days, one could barely stop at a market stall without being jostled along by impatient elbows and overwarm bodies.
On these days, Eliana preferred to stick to the canal paths, judging where repairs were needed. Though the city was busy, it had less of the enthusiastic energy that had characterised the Nippur market in years gone by. The wounds had healed, but the scars remained.
The friendship between Mari and Eliana had only a couple of moons to prosper. In an attempt to reduce the number of beggars in Nippur, Samsu arranged a sweep of the streets. Overnight, he cleared away all the able-bodied orphans and needy, taking them into slavery to work his palace. Eliana had not heard anything of or from Mari since, and feared the worst for her.
This only inflamed her fury against Samsu. In the eight moons since he stole her sister away, Eliana had only been permitted to visit her once.
They sat together in the garden – Eliana was not allowed inside the palace – and talked of banalities and pleasantries. She could not discover anything of her sister’s life inside the palace, and didn’t dare to ask. They sat in the shadows of two huge guards, set to stand watch over the pair and report back on every word. Eliana told Kisha of her work in the city, trying to improve people’s lives. Kisha was quiet and withdrawn, remarking only on the weather and Eliana’s dress, and asking after their father.
Eliana didn’t mind that her sister was reserved. Just to be in her company again was enough.
That visit had been four moons ago, and she had not been invited to see Kisha since.
She pushed herself even harder during the day, wearing out her sandals more quickly than ever before, but still sleep did not come easily. She would often lay awake long into the hours of Suen’s watch – the moon god pouring his light through her window to pool on her bed. Lying under the blanket, she would watch the pool slowly travel the room, usually not falling asleep until shortly before Utu took his turn in the sky and brought the dawn.
It was on one such night as this that she was startled by a light cough under her window. She sat upright, wondering if she had half-dreamed it. She listened intently.
The cough came again, followed by an unmistakeable whisper: ‘Eliana!’
She sprang from the bed and ran to the window. It framed her face, luminously pale in the moonlight. The shadowy figure below pulled down the hood of his cloak – Isin!
‘Meet me in the garden,’ she hissed.
She threw on a cloak and hurried soft-footed down to meet him, leaping lightly over the creaky floorboards. She found him sat on the very bench where she had last sat with Kisha.
‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’ she whispered.
‘I can’t be seen near you – I scribe for Samsu now.’
‘So?’
‘He can’t know I’ve been here, and I don’t want to raise his suspicions. He already doesn’t trust me – I think his spies have learned about my engagement to Kisha.’ His voice broke a little as he said her name. He sat with his back to Suen, his face in shadow, the god’s light only illuminating his reed-like form and long-fingered hands. ‘I have a message from her.’
‘You’ve seen her?’ Eliana asked desperately, clutching at his hand, ‘how is she?’
‘I haven’t seen her, as such. Her maid got a message to me to pass along. No man is allowed near her – Samsu is very protective of his property.’
‘Then what’s the message?’ she had to hold herself back, else she would have grabbed Isin and shaken the message out of him.
‘She just begs you to come and see her. She... she says she’s in fear of her life.’
Eliana stifled a gasp. ‘Samsu?’
‘No, actually. As I said, he’s very protective of his property. It’s his wife, Susa. They whisper that she is cruel to Kisha; that she’ll stop at nothing to get rid of her.’
‘I thought she was a harmless old woman? I’ve never even seen her.’
‘Harmless unless you cross her. Kisha is a threat – Samsu only married your sister to get heirs. Susa wants her own son to inherit, though he has no more Babylonian blood than she does.’
Eliana stared at the moonlight playing across the ripples of the pool. ‘I’ll go to her tomorrow. I’ll find some pretext.’
Isin stood, ‘don’t mention me, or Mari.’
‘Mari?’
‘Kisha’s maid.’
Eliana breathed a sigh of relief – she could have kissed Isin for that piece of news. Mari was safe – and Kisha had a friend at her side.
Isin continued, ‘Samsu wants Kisha to forget that she ever had a family – he wants her loyal to him alone, completely dependent on his good will. Don’t mention a message at all. It will bring none of us anything good.’
Eliana embraced him, ‘thank you for coming. I know the risk you’re taking.’
He nodded, ‘anything for Kisha.’
Pulling up the black hood of his cloak, he disappeared through the side door of the garden, stealthy as a shadow.
Eliana returned to bed. If she had been wakeful before, she was fully alert now. Her heart went out to her sister.
Oh, Kisha! she thought, what are they doing to you in there? Possibilities chased each other through her mind, each more chilling than the last.
She lay awake until Suen was fully abed and Utu’s pink-gold light filled the room before drifting into a brief, uneasy sleep of sheer fatigue.