Dear Readers: Let's check in with Atria in Ancient Mesopotamia...
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Scene 4: Justice
2020 B.C.
This damned human race was not making her job very easy.
Where were the downright evil turds who undeniably deserved to die? Surely the earth was crawling with them, if the source of Nyx’s strength lay in the dark heart of humanity. Atria had met several such turds in the temple—but alas, they were already dead. She must have cut their threads during her previous visit to the Cave, while snipping randomly. At least those arbitrary snips had turned out well; the world was better off to be rid of those vicious, vulgar pricks. She could not take any credit for cutting their threads, though. It had been random. Just a happy accident, by no intentional design or desire of hers.
She wanted to take credit for the slaughter of dark-hearted souls. She wanted blood upon her hands. The dirty blood of pigs whose death would help toward draining Nyx’s power, saving Mother’s life.
Atria could think of nothing else, as she trekked from the Cedar Forest back to the city of Ur, arriving by nightfall. Approaching palace guards who recognized her right away as the king’s gift-whore from Inanna. Hers was not a figure quick to be forgotten.
They gawped at her as she strode up to the palatial entrance.
“H–halt,” one of them stammered as she came dangerously close, closer than modesty allowed, far too close for his manhood to contain itself. “Whence have you come? Why are you not beside your king?”
Atria flashed a winning smile, more to herself than to the guard, pleased to see the effect that she quite plainly had on this young man. At least the noble, prudish Gilgamesh was the exception rather than the rule, she mused with pride. “My goddess summoned me away,” she purred. “As I exist in service to Inanna, I must answer always to her beck and call. She bids me now to reenter the chambers of my king.”
With a bat of her lashes, she made the boy’s knees buckle visibly.
She drew a little closer to the smitten sentry, conscious of the gazes of the other guards upon her, dripping with desirous jealousy. “I pray you will allow me in, to do my divine bidding?”
His eyes were dark, dilated, powerless to blink, his lolling tongue incapable of speech. This was exactly how she liked her victims to look.
Atria leant in, her lower lip brushing his ear. “I’ll owe you a favor, for letting me in.” And these words, of course, were her ticket inside.
The other guards motioned to stop her, for further questioning as their post probably required, though likely also for the privilege of staring at her for a few moments more. In response to this, she darted a dark emerald wink at the boy whom she’d so easily persuaded to grant her passage. “Just tell them I’ll owe them the same.”
Atria sauntered through the halls toward the king’s chambers, making cheap promises to several more sentries at various points along the way. Amused at the ease with which such empty words could win her anything she wished, here in this world of witless men.
She bypassed the final set of sentinels and then was finally back in Shulgi’s quarters. The king seemed presently absorbed in serious work, but his gaze lifted as she entered, his thick lips stretching straightaway into the widest of grins. “Ah, my pet,” he bellowed warmly, standing up to come toward her. “You have returned to me.”
The word ‘pet’ made her cringe somewhat—it sounded like the very opposite of what she liked to be—but she masked that reaction, prepared to pretend just for now that this man was her master.
Shulgi approached and placed his palm, calloused yet soft to the touch, upon her cheek. “Where have you been, sweet pet? Did Inanna whisk you back to the distant realm whence you were sent to me?”
Atria simpered, bowing her head in a coy nod. “Indeed; my goddess summoned me away.” Lies were her only language of late.
His hand shifted downward, tracing a slow and tender line along her neck. “So she deemed me undeserving of your gifts, last night?”
She shook her head. “Never undeserving, my king. There were simply… other tasks that required my attention…”
His fingers halted, at the hollow of her throat. “Oh? Is it selfish of me to hope that these tasks did not require… pleasing other men…?”
“Oh, so selfish,” she murmured with a saucy smile, reaching for his hand with her own, raising his forefinger up toward her parted lips. “But I’m all yours tonight, my king, so be as selfish as you’d like.”
And so he was, though Atria of course derived some selfish pleasures of her own from what ensued. It was just as breathtaking as the first night they had shared, if not more so, despite the fact that other matters lurked within her mind as they devoured one another. She would not let herself forget, this time. Would let herself be temporarily diverted, but never derailed, from her dark fateful task.
After a few rounds, she disengaged from his embrace and sat up in the regal bed, swiveling a bit so that her bare back was facing him.
“Done so soon, my pet?” he chuckled, stroking a knuckle down her spine as she bent to retrieve her clothing from the floor. “As I recall, our previous night together you were craving ever more…”
“My goddess bade me to be mindful of your royal responsibilities, and to not distract you overlong,” she explained, turning to face him again once she was dressed, beaming at him and planting one more kiss upon his panting mouth. “When last we spoke upon this bed, you had mentioned some matters of justice, yes? A code of rules conceived by your great father, written into law under your own mighty reign?”
Shulgi raised his brow, impressed. “I’d thought the topic to be idle pillow talk—but you remember that? My pretty pet has got a brain?”
Atria knew he’d meant it fondly but was nonetheless insulted by the compliment. She struggled not to show it, blushing as she should.
He released an affectionate laugh, the bed rumbling beneath him. “Quite right. A most sophisticated legal code, and one of the first, in the known world as yet. My father was a many-splendored man, a true beacon of justice in the land; I had best live up to his legacy.”
He rose and donned his robes, moving to a table across the room, upon which sat rectangular tablets of clay inscribed with lines of text. He beckoned her to join him, indulging her in explanations of the laws. Though she could read perfectly well herself—pleased to find that her universal gift of comprehension, as a mortal Fate, extended from spoken language to the written word as well—she feigned otherwise. Literacy didn’t seem consistent with the skill set that Inanna would bestow upon a gift-whore sent to earth to please a man.
Atria listened intently as he spoke, focusing most closely on the laws that labeled certain crimes as punishable by death.
“…And if a man deflowers the virginal wife of another man, then he shall be killed,” the king declared. “And if a man’s wife follows after another man and they lie together, then the woman shall be killed, while the man shall be set free…”
She read the words along with Shulgi’s utterance, finding them to be as he stated, to her dismay. “What is the distinction, between those two laws?” she blurted, too appalled to bother framing her question any more gracefully. “Is it a question of pursuit? Virginity? Both?”
Shulgi furrowed his brow, taken aback by the blunt interruption. He proceeded to explain that the distinction did indeed involve both elements, but his words fell on deaf ears; nothing could explain such injustice, to Atria’s mind. She knew what she was set to do tonight.
Some time later, once Shulgi was well spent and fast asleep, she slipped from his chambers and wended her way through the palace. Asking around, tempting servants and sentries for answers with promises of favors, until she reached the dungeons. Asking further, until guided to the only cell currently occupied by a female prisoner.
She was young. She was virtuous, pure, though no longer a virgin, in body or soul, after the violation that Atria could see scratched clearly in the scars and streaks of tears across her face. Atria knelt before the shackled convict, set for execution on the morrow. “Tell me what happened,” she whispered. “Tell me what brought you here.”
The victim did: every lurid detail of the assault, and how the pig had framed it as a case of adulterous pursuit by a whorish wife. How his lies were believed, for he was rich and powerful, while her word was worth nothing. And Atria saw nothing but the truth, in the poor eyes of the accused. She tempted the prison guards to release the girl—giving actual favors, rather than empty promises of such—for it was necessary, and worth it now, to win the freedom of the innocent.
She led the girl home, to the husband who loved her and had been all but set to mourn her loss. Urged them to flee from the city and never return. Before they fled, Atria asked of them one thing only.
The name of the guilty.
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So, looks like this Fate has finally found a certain thread to snip ;) aaaand that was our final scene with ancient-times Atria in all of Book I... Any thoughts on her journey so far? :)
Also, FYI - the laws mentioned here are drawn from the actual text of the Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest known legal code in existence today, which governed Ancient Sumeria at this period in history. (Ur-Nammu was the father and predecessor of King Shulgi.) Just in case anyone was curious ;)
Next scene, we'll pick up where we left off with #Cloder ♥ in the palace of King Cepheus... And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)