Leaving and locking the blue gate behind her, Mizatu began her walk through the brilliantly painted walled blocks, large estates, and courtyards of the old town. She took her regular route northwest through the narrow side-alleys and shortcuts to find the main street through the wealthy district. She followed the sandy dirt road, which had been there since the founding of the city, down towards its decline at the canal bank.

Once Miszatu had reached the bottom of the depression and the shimmering blue waters of the Purattu were in plain view, she walked up to the large arched gate, the Bab sha Zumun, which seperated the majority of the mushkennu of the city from the awilu. Miszatu was almost excited to show off the seal which Asqudum had assigned to her. She was quite familiar with the small staff who operated the gate, since her services as a naditu would often necessitate her passage between the old and lower city, unlike most of old town's residents.

Nabi-Shamash and Mar-Ninanna stood at the door, though she usually knew them to be jovial and laid-back, today they stood at rigid attention before the gate. Their spears upraised. They must have been scolded to be more vigilant after the drama of this morning. Miszatu was disappointed. Their good cheer was always something she appreciated in her daily commute. The slow-pace of their job made their skills as eshra-mitartu players legendary, yet today, the board, the dice, and the tokens were nowhere to be seen.

Miszatu approached them and they met her with their eyes. She stopped in her tracks and fumbled with the folds of her gown to produce the beautiful cylinder seal for passage, but before she had managed to grasp it they had already creaked the gate open for her.

"Aalluu Miszatu, just go right through." Mar-Ninanna greeted her.

Miszatu was slightly disappointed not to be able to share her new authority with pleasant acquaintances, but no matter, it was a somber day.

She walked through the gate and strolled across the arched bridge which connected the west and east side of town, dallying a little to see if she could spot the shadows of any passing fish. Young boys floated downstream from her in their reed gondolas.

Miszatu crossed the bridge into the lower city. Though she had made frequent trips to the district, the city beyond old town was five times the size of the central district, and many of its locales were still strange to her. It would be unsafe for a naditu to venture into the more uncouth parts of the city, and a flagrant violation of their vows in other instances.

Miszatu cautiously wound her way through the side-streets, strafing southwest through the labyrinthine alleys towards the E-anna district. Most of the buildings on the way were small, one room houses in varying states of disrepair. She could hear harried mothers and mischievous children bustling through their homes and yards. She deftly side-stepped the rubble and sherds which lay strewn all across the ground.

Following a shoddy alley which snaked up a modest incline, Miszatu came to the plaza at the center of the E-anna. The temple of Inanna sat at the back, steps leading to the elevated chapel above the workshops and plots which surrounded it. In the plaza stood a handful of stands and professionals offering their services, and in the shadow of those outlets was huddled a line of beggars who reclined on their blankets in the sweltering afternoon, poor broken souls cheated of limb and teeth. As she looked around to try to get a better sense of her orientation around the plaza, Miszatu began to notice the crowds of flamboyantly dressed women who loitered around the outskirts of the plaza and the steps of the temple.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Miszatu decided she wanted to start checking out the neighborhood without drawing attention to herself, so she stepped out of the plaza and began walking further west towards the Ninanna gate, which was unmanned, and passed through to the sunny fields beyond.

When she came out from the gate it opened onto the gardening plots which lay sandwiched between the outer and interior defensive walls of the city. Since there had been no assault on the walls in many years, the space in the dry moat between the gates was often rented out to mushkennu and waradu in the city as horticultural land. Many poor families and slaves depended on their yields from these gardens for their very survival.

Miszatu began strolling between the lot of gardening plots which were clustered together, segmented off into uneven grids by the artificial watering canals dug out of the ground and connected to the well which sat in the center of the lot. As it was the middle of summer, the plots were thickly populated by chickpeas, lentils, and turnips, the seeds having already been sown, the garden crops did not need to be tended so vigilantly until the fall. The field was empty, save for an old woman and a younger woman hunched over together by a small plot of early blooming lentils, only a cubit or so in length and width.

Seeing the only two people working the garden, Miszatu hailed and walked towards them. The old woman stood up from her tending to meet her. As she drew closer and closer, Miszatu watched as her eyes bugled. As she finally stepped next to her, Miszatu saw that she was a woman of considerable age, worn on her face bundled in a black shawl which must have been sweltering in this season, her brows furrowed and her mouth soured.

The woman began to irately shout at Miszatu in Houri, something along the lines of:

["What is wrong with you! How do you not look where you are going! How many hours of work did you step on!?"]

Miszatu was shocked. Why was this woman so angry at her? Had she done something wrong?

"My mother is angry at you because just stepped on half of our plot, Beletiya." stated the unamused younger woman in a slightly Houri tinged Akkadu.

She looked down at her sandals and saw the squashed bean pods and upturned roots she had left in her wake.

The Houri woman continued to shout and berate her, but she still had no idea what she was saying. A good shaming passes every tongue.

"I am so so sorry, ma'am. I am a naditu of the Lady Nanshe, we offer rations to all who ask. If you come by the E-Sirara just tell my sisters and they will reimburse you anything I have damaged." Miszatu offered in genuine apology in order to quell her embarrassment.

"The promise of a future meal across the river is of little use to us. What do you want, Beletiya?" the old Houri woman's daughter snapped at her.

"Do you know when more people come by to tend the fields? I'm here trying to find a mother missing a child who might live around here." Miszatu pleaded.

"Most of these fields belong to the tribe that the overseer of the E-Anna district belongs to. They send their slaves here in the morning. We've heard nothing about a missing child." replied the younger woman.

["What does she want?"] The old woman asked her daughter.

["The lady is looking for a woman missing a child around here."] the younger Houri woman answered.

The old woman's ire seemed momentarily placated, she began shaking her fingers rythmically explaining to her daughter: ["Ahh, Well I see why she would come here. She should check the ladies of Shaushka. Also, failing that, she should go to the weaver house."]

Miszatu pretended to follow what she was saying, but she actually just savored the sonorous quality of her speech in Houri like appreciating a song.

"Mama says that you should speak to the ladies of Shaushka-"

"Shaushka?"

The young woman poked the edge of her ear and closed her eyes, embarrassed to have not caught a fault in her own Akkadu.

She continued. "Ah, Ninnana. The Ladies of Ninnana outside the temple. She is Shaushka in Houri. Also you should ask around the Weaver House across the square!"

Miszatu nodded. she spoke in clear and slower Akkadu, just in case the old Houri woman was better at listening. "Thank you both so much! I am so sorry for damaging your plot! Please come by the E-Sirara whenever you can, I will personally arrange to make sure that the guards flag you through the gate!"

"We will hold you to that, Beletiya!" the young woman called back at her in a disgruntled monotone as Miszatu walked briskly back to the E-anna plaza.