Of Gods and Walls
(Fragments of an Education)
He found himself staring at her from an uncomfortable position on the floor, she having knocked him there. Her king rose, and, after a heartbeat, smiled. She almost felt a moment of fear, but relaxed when he spoke.
"Where does a woman find such strength of arm?"
Anath-Sin wondered if she should tell him that secret-long ago she had discovered that women were not so weak, but were rather became as hard as the uses to which they had been put. And also, with the training of Imhotep, she had learned that more than strength, one required knowledge of the body itself-the angles at which a limb might more readily bend, or readily break. But she also knew it was better to show a thing than to tell one, the better that the lesson be learned. And so she merely replied,
"I have worked hard, as any of us must. As you, apparently, should. But you have much strength, yourself, my young god. The ground undoubtedly felt that one."
His eyes flashed with rage, but this pleased her. She had learned that the secret to teaching her man was to work with his rage and pride-two things he had in abundance. He swiftly retorted,
"Woman, perhaps the ground would be appeased by having your softer flesh against it."
"Could you, perhaps, be appeased by my flesh against you?" she responded, just as swiftly, shrugging her shoulder just enough to let the cloth of her garment drape down, exposing her breast. "I tell you only the truth that you might improve, not to wound you. But, it should be remembered-I can wound you, as can any Immortal with enough experience. It takes but one strike to mean your death, if only it be the right one. And if I throw you to the ground, it means you were unguarded-I saw what you did not see. Remember that what I have learned, I have learned over lifetimes. I see more because I have seen more-you must learn to look at things in that way."
"I will see to it that I do," he replied, raising his sword again. She shook her head in the negative.
"I have worked like the dog of a Bedou. And I thirst like one-my tongue nearly hangs. But I think beer should better suit my thirst than rain, and the taste of your lips might suit me better still." She brushed past him, fending off the tap of his sword with an easy move. She brought her sword to within an inch of his throat, and stole her kiss. "You weren't trying, were you?"
"Perhaps I was." He looked at her, with arrogance.
"Then you'd have to try harder. I wonder if beer does not speak. I do believe I hear a voice from the jar. It calls me." She motioned to the old servant to fetch her a jar, and the old man shuffled off. She trusted him implicitly to never speak of the things he witnessed between herself and the king. He had no tongue to speak with.
The king's eyes followed the aged figure, and then he looked at Anath-Sin. "You speak of the dog of a Bedou. Can I take it that you have lived as a Bedou-no better than the Amorites or Martu, wearing skins and drinking water from ditches?" he demanded of her, with searching directness.
Her eyes slowly drifted in his direction, taking note of his stance, but not taking any offense.
"Indeed I have lived as a Martu, and my feet became as hard at goat's hooves, but I drank from skins, not ditches, and wore the dirt of honest labor.," she replied, smiling. "Nor did we ever drink from cups of gold, nor wore fine things of wool. Wool, perhaps, but never fine," she added, placing emphasis on the word "fine", as she touched his robe. "I should take you where the smell of sheep would quickly exhaust the perfumes of your office."
"Would you like me better," he demanded then, with false anger, "if I stank of sheep? And honest labor?"
"Honest? Not that I would care, although the stink of sheep takes some getting used to. Honesty is good in a Bedou, disaster for a king. And honesty suits their gods as well-you need only be as honest as suits yourself-my young god."
He grew thoughtful at that. "My people have me-what manner of gods have the Bedou?"
She could recall the stories told around the campfire-told with piety and seriousness that they nearly made her believe. Theirs were gods of power, they would say. And yet, such gods never gave, but seemed more inclined to take. A bedouin might see a wolf and make prayers that he not see a wolf-the god grants that he not see one wolf alone, but two. He prays against a lingering sickness, and the god brings death. He prays for his god to stop thieves and marauders, and yet Anath-Sin could not recall even once being stopped by any gods. It seemed that the gods wished to interfere in the affairs of Anath-Sin as little as she wanted to interfere in theirs-and that was how she preferred things, particularly given the curious nature of their whims.
"Here is what I have to say on the subject of the gods of the Bedou," she then answered, at length. "The Bedou wander this earth, making no place their home. They build no cities, and they raise no walls. And they say they put their faith in the gods. Your people have built cities, and they have raised walls, and well I believe their faith is in those walls, not necessarily the gods."
He thought on that. "What does this tell me about their gods?"
"Come against the Martu with chariots at full gallop and arrows flying, and tell me whether one is better off having faith in gods than walls. But do not be surprised if the last toothless grandmother of a Bedou doesn't paint your face with a lump of what the shepherd stepped in-that is what I know about their faith. I still can say I barely know their gods. Wait-of any people, perhaps I know this of their gods-they have two. With many names-but two."
"Two?"
"That of man, and that of woman. For your people are not more different from the Bedou as a man and a woman differ from each other."
He smiled at that. "This is true. For I know well that you differ from me…"
"And that, of course, is the nature of things. And I am well-pleased with such a nature."
****
"You do appear a god that way, beloved of the Goddess," she said, watching him sweep off the two-horned helmet before entering their tent. "You seem to glow. Battle suits you."
She rushed to his side to help him off with his leather armor, and wiped at the sweat that made his skin glow.
"They have retreated. I believe they will soon be vanquished."
Taking note of the hollows under his eyes, she sighed. "The day was long, my lord?"
He nodded, and she fetched wine. She took stock of how he did not speak, and wondered if the sight of the endless days of battle had not begun to wear on him, but also she knew what he became in battle-even as herself. His mind traveled elsewhere, and yet he plunged himself forward, killing with fluid motions and the grim perception of duty. And also, she had taken her position on the hill to see for herself the formation of the Elamite troop-she knew that these were but some portion of their force, and wondered if they were making only a strategic retreat, intending in full to return in greater force. And she also knew he suspected the same thing, for he was well-used to such matters.
"I saw the bodies that littered the field-it went well, but it is not yet over. But I see there is a thing we might do-not here, in the field, but yet in our fields-nay, our riverbed. I have given thought to a thing that I perceive the generals would not have thought of."
He stared at her, wearily. Depending upon her experience was one thing, for her years had been long and full, and she had seen more of war than any dozen aged men. But her gift, as she pointed out to him, was to innovate-she told him that any thing worth doing might well be worth doing a new way-for she had seen how quickly it seemed to her that a new thing might prove better than an old-a copper knife over one of stone, a bronze over one of copper. A clay tablet over a string of beads. And yet there was always that threat that what she would propose would be something elaborate and impossible. He wished she would stop prating on about horses. To feed an army, perhaps. To carry one?
"Speak, old woman. What is your plan?"
"The war should be fought by our slaves-they will build a dam for us. And we shall see the end of the enemy within the course of two harvests."
Kronos surveyed her face, and saw that she was serious-and yet she spoke of "harvests" and that was strange. And yet she knew a way of treating the samana plague with fire, and so seemed to have acquaintance with the ways of the soil.
"A dam, Anath-Sin?"
She smiled then, well-pleased with herself. "I know which way the water flows."
He thought on this-the Elamites were down-river. A dam?
"A dam would divert the river's flow."
"And we know the water that remains will become full of salt. And that which lays will begin to stink, and there will be flies."
"Their crops will fail…and…"
"Their wives and children will die, my king. If anything would defeat them, it would be that."
"Our matter is with their men."
"If they are burying their wives and children, they are not fighting, my young god." She smiled. And then she perceived his reluctance. "It is not swords, Kronos, but all the devices of death with which a man of war must acquaint himself. You must consider all the ways a man might die if you must kill him."
"And his children."
She looked at him. "Consider your children, my king. Or rather, the children of your wives. They are men. They are old-I saw one of those sons of yours. He seemed of an age with yourself. Soon, perhaps he will think himself ready to rule. Do fathers owe their sons their deaths to provide an inheritance? What does a man owe his child, having given it life?"
"No father gave life to me! And nameless men gave breath to my heirs!" he snapped then.
"Nor did I give breath to you, nor could any man call himself my father. It is our lot to take life. So, wherefore hesitate?"
"And so, to end the war, we bring them famine and sickness?"
"Death. It all ends the same."
He heard the tone of challenge in her voice. "Then they will die," he announced.
"See…it's easy."
*****
"I don't believe even you know how old you might be," her king exclaimed, staring at her. She wiped at her sword with a piece of cloth-the blade was neither tarnished nor stained, but she thought perhaps she could see something blurry there. "Did you perhaps see the flood?"
"I've seen rain. I do believe it once rained more than it does now," she smiled, distracted.
"Did you know Gilgamesh?"
"I've known more than one man of that name-a mortal who was a king, and an Immortal who was very old indeed-his teacher was Uta-Napishtim. There are still rumors he lives-but I don't believe them."
"About the mortal or the other?'
"Either." She fussed with the leather she had wrapped around the hilt. It was beginning to show wear. She would need to find a new thong to bind it with. And she also reminded herself that she wanted oil.
"Tell me how many years you have!" he cried then, playfully, resting his sword on her shoulder. She knew better than to think he meant to seriously threaten her. But she gave it some thought. She honestly did not know. The more she thought about the years, the less sense they made. And so she tried to explain.
"We never did count years in the time when I was young. We knew the time of heat and the time of rain. We knew that things became green and then seemed to sleep, to die. We knew the growing of grain, and its seasons, but never thought to count them-to what avail? Would cold not give way to hot, nor death to life? We saw the stars and they had names, and we made out their shapes in the heavens and knew their tales, how they played over the ages-but that was even as the games of children, compared to the very act of knowing the time in years-one was younger than one's mother, older than one's children. One merely grew, until one stopped growing and became old. And so I always imagined it would have been for me-and part of me still wonders why I have no gray hair."
"Try," he urged.
"Your people change the names of the year with every event that matters to them-how can I measure my life but by my own events? I once slew a woman who believed she was a goddess. I once killed my teacher. I once was mad for what must have been…oh! Perhaps a thousand years, as you would count them."
"Mad for a thousand years?" he repeated, in disbelief. At lying she was famously bad, and yet, as a story-teller, she was famously compelling.
"Something possessed my to travel to the East when I had killed Imhotep. In Tamera, I was as a dead woman, for he was favored by Menes, and well he knew that I had slain his advisor. Little did it matter to him that the man had asked me to do the deed. But never before had I ventured to the East, and as I longed to see some new mountains having lived in plains, I was for moving on.
"I went north first, to see again the land that brought me forth, and the old mountains I knew were different, for many years had I dwelt in Tamera, which you would call Kemet, and so would I…but that is a tale of politics. I have little use for those. But I saw trees then, and a forest that had not been when I was young, and the water I once knew to be fresh had become salt. I nearly wept. And the tongue that the people spoke was barely one I knew. And so I continued on-east, ever east. And then I met a tribe called Nagan, and these were men who hunted heads-not as our people hunt heads, but they made trophies of the heads of mortal men to please their gods.
"I had little care for this! And then I saw a man among them, who was rough, and smelled-why-his people bathed in their own wastes-to keep away the pest! Of this, what can I say? And he had but scanty hair upon his face-yet his eyes reminded me of Imhotep…I thought to speak with him, but he had…I know not. Perhaps a demon seized him, for there was something in him which was not as in a man. And I had little patience for a man such as he was. He challenged me, and I slew him-but when I did-suddenly I was mad.
"Oh-if ever you should wonder what is madness…I was that, for it was as if a cloud had settled on my skin. I was like a man struck with falling sickness, not in control of my senseless movements, or like a bull who is in the worst of rutting season…or yourself in battle, when there is nothing before you but the weak-to any eye, you might seem mad, but also a god. So I was mad, but also a vision to the people who saw me. And how I saw the world-it was as if it had been painted anew. I imagined myself a lioness, with fangs and claws."
"And so you sometimes seem," Kronos commented.
"I do have fangs. I also bite," she responded. She gathered her thoughts, wondering about the madness she had known. Though far away, it seemed so close in her mind, as if at any moment she could feel herself pulled into that frenzy of activity-and horror of killing. "And so I found a people who tamed horses-I stole one, seizing it from behind, and leaped upon the beast. It carried me-and I learned to ride the thing-as I had seen others do. But it seemed a pleasant way to move swiftly, and I had a desire to go further-east!
"The further I went, the less the people I saw resembled myself-I saw people who perhaps as dark as the Mehluhha, and also those who had eyes like Imhotep. They were mostly peaceful, even after my own people, time out of mind, but many ate of the flesh of their own kind. They fought in ways different from the ways I had known, but died like anyone else. And some called me after their goddesses, so a band of men began to follow me. And they killed with me-because they believed it was the proper worship. They were good people, and burned their kin in death. I had been among people no better than them before. There were people with whom I could speak, for their language came naturally enough to me-but I barely spoke with any-I killed. Villages disappeared."
"Why had you done these things?" Kronos exclaimed.
"Who can know? I wore the bones of my victims, perhaps to remind myself that what I did was a horror. I took the heads of mortals and men. My clothes were their bones-and I wore nothing else. And I rode relentlessly, without tiring, for I was in a dream. And I became filthy-black with the dust in which I traveled. I slept among the dead…not concerned about their smell, or their waste, nor the buzzing of flies. My hair grew, and also was matted and black from the dirt of the way I traveled, until I seemed some blue-black monster-my hair a horror flying behind me. Until it grew so heavy, it barely moved from my shoulders, and I became conscious of its weight. And everywhere I went, I was considered a legend, a goddess. Sometimes women came forth from their houses trying to appease me with fruit and flowers, and desired to drape jewels about my flesh. They tried to make me drink milk-but I drank blood.
"But I was not totally without sense, and so I began to listen to the words of the people around me. Sometimes I would take their gifts, instead of their lives. And I heard a rumor which I could not believe-there was another! They called him the dead man-and they said that he was as mad as I was. I could not fathom such a thing, but the notion captured my imagination-as mad as myself? And so I asked to know more."
"What was he?"
"I could but imagine he was Immortal. But they would say he was pale. I let the woman bathe me and they exclaimed that he was as pale as myself-so we must both be gods! And yet he painted his face blue-but was handsome, they said. Even as they found me to be beautiful. And so I rode on, in search of this dead man who was as mad as I.
"They said he rode, even as I rode. They said he killed, even as I did. They said he did not die, and my heart thrilled. I went on, asking after this mad man. I grew a civil tongue, and killed none who could only tell me they had seen the creature. I let my hair be cut, and twisted up after some fashion of their people in braids. I let them put gold on my arms, but still I did not give over my dress of bones. And then I finally came to a place but recently visited by this man-mad as myself. This dead man. And the people said he wept as he killed-but killed all the same. And I made up my mind I should do no other thing but find him."
"Did you?" Kronos demanded.
"I did! I spied him, every bit the strange creature they claimed he was-and I knew, even such as we are. Even such as we."
She paused seeing the shadows on the cloth grow long, and then shake, and knew the fire only leapt up when she was about to say a true thing. Even now, she wondered what she could tell him of Methos and what she should not. In some ways, these two students were so similar in their aptitude, and yet so different in the ways in which it would display itself. She wondered if it would not be better if Methos were the one to train this student, and yet she almost feared introducing them. As friends or as enemies, the world should have reasons to fear them together. Both were more intelligent than most, and killed with surprising ease.
"And I saw him in the moment of killing another of our kind-the power of this thing is something you have yet to experience, but once you have seen it, or felt it for yourself, you can not quite imagine it. But when you have seen this-you can not doubt what you are in the presence of. But I felt that what I was seeing what clearly a monster younger than myself and I wondered. For I was followed by men, but he was alone, and it seemed to me he should not be that way. I crept away before he could sense me, but I knew what I wished to do.
"He had come to a village where the children played in the mud, and the old people stood outside their places and watched them. It was a quiet and fine place. He had traveled for weeks without ceasing, I knew he would need to rest."
"What had you done then?" Kronos asked her. She closed her eyes.
"What I've always been able to do. I had men. I had the desire. We set upon the village and destroyed it that he would know what I was. And I bid the men to bind him and deliver him before my feet so he would know why I had done it. And believing us both to be gods, they did as I commanded. And this enraged him! He nearly thought to take my head for it!" She laughed at the memory.
"But he learned. He learned not to try my patience, and I learned that he was not mad."
"He was not?"
"No. Angry. Terrified. Alone. And that is a wretched thing, but live long enough and you will know that feeling. You will know it better than happiness, for such is the way of the world. And I could barely draw from him what made him so, but could only imagine that his memories were terrible. And so I did what I could."
"What was that?"
"I made him forget all that had come before. There was too much sadness for me to make any use of him that way-and so he needed to forget."
She put away her sword, and found the wineskin. Telling tales was a thirsty business, and she did not care to think about what had needed to be done. It would have killed a mortal man. It nearly killed Methos, or rather, it killed him and made him reborn. But she felt some guilt over it all, as if it were a thing she should not have done.
"I know there are things you can do, Anath-Sin, to make a man forget. But how did you do this?"
"With strength. As I have done many a thing," she answered, and desired to say no more.
At times she had to strike him, stab him, or bind him to make him hear her when he would not listen. But she knew that if he ran from her, it would not be long before he met with something she imagined would be worse than herself. At the very least, she knew she had no intention of killing him-anyone else might have. But still, there were days in the beginning when it was as if he could not speak at all, and times when she knew he had wept like a child from the treatment she had given him. But she could not say within herself that the result had been all bad.
She imagined that even now, he might be in some respects saner than herself.