In the sixth year of my Enship, when I was twenty-one years old, I received an urgent summons from a messenger who asked me to follow him at once.

It was Igiru who delivered the summons to me, saying the messenger was waiting outside the giparu and that he seemed terribly distraught. I lay down my stylus with a bit of reluctance, for I had been composing another hymn to Nanna and did not like to be interrupted during my writing, but I knew that Igiru would not have asked me to come with her unless it was truly a serious matter. I followed her to the giparu’s door, where I beheld none other than Lugal Kaku standing under the acacias. It was alarming enough that the Lugal of Urim was here, as he so rarely came to see me himself, but even more alarming was the fact that he was not surrounded by a brace of courtiers and servants, nor even any guards that I could see. He wiped his brow uncertainly, as though he had forgotten how to do it himself, and fixed me with a look of concern that unnerved me all the more.

“Greetings, friend Lugal,” I said. “I confess I am surprised to see you. May I inquire as to the reason for your visit?”

“Great Enship,” he said gravely. “If you will forgive me, is there perhaps a more private place for us to talk? The news I have come to deliver is, I am afraid, of a rather sensitive nature, though it will soon reach across the Land Between Two Rivers.”

There was a small building adjacent to the giparu where I received visitors from outside the temple: merchants, tenant farmers and their agents whose gender barred them from the giparu proper. I had even met with Lugal Kaku there in the past on his rare visits to the temple. I wondered why the Lugal had come on his own to the very door of my private apartments--to show me how serious his news was? Or perhaps he was pompous enough to think I would allow him into the giparu. In any case I led him to the reception chamber and offered him a seat at one of the fine chairs, carved of imported cedarwood, taking another of them for myself. When he was seated, he gave a deep sigh.

“Oh Enship, it is with a heavy heart and the deepest sorrow that I must relate to you this news,” he began. I groaned inwardly. Lugal Kaku’s speech was always like this, as florid and excessive as the man himself. Whenever he started speaking to me I wished I could take a knife and trim the fat from his words to get at the meaning underneath.

“Speak, friend Lugal,” I said.

He dabbed at his bald head and said some more pretty words in which I caught the phrase “your father”.

I sat up in my chair. “My father?” I asked. “Has some ill befallen him?”

“Even so, Enship,” said Lugal Kaku. “We had a letter from Akkade signed and sealed by your brother Rimush. Your father, the True King--he is dead.”

There is an old song where a god uses a spell to turn away his enemy’s arrows. He calls to the materials of the arrow, one by one, and disperses them with the power of his words. “Shaft, go back to the tree you were carved from! Arrowhead, go back to the quarry! Twine, go back to the gut of the sheep! Feather, return to the bird!” And the arrow flies apart and never makes its target, ceases to even be an arrow, because it has gone back to being all the things it used to be. In that moment I wanted to dismantle Lugal Kaku’s message and all that came with it just so. I wanted to speak those words before the bolt of his truth struck me, before my emotions swelled up again like rising river water, before my life was changed forever. Words, leave my ears, go back to his lips. Rage, go back to my heart. Sorrow, go back to my belly. Princess, go back to the palace, aga leave her head, robe leave her body, little girl, be a child again, and play. Then there would be no message, there would be no change. My words had a power that I cherished, but not that kind of power.

I was not exactly sad to hear that my father was dead, but neither was I happy. He had been cruel to me, and I remembered all too well how he had sent me away without telling me his plan for me, how I had cursed him with tear-stained cheeks. I cannot say that I loved him, or that I love him now, as young women are meant to love their fathers, but in that moment I was sorry I was not with my brothers, and I was angry all over again at him for sending me away to marry the Moon and live in His temple far from Akkade. He was my father, yes, but he was also my king, the only king I had ever known, and his Empire was my world.

At that time, my father had been King of the World for over fifty years. A lifetime for some, and for those who toil with the dust of mines in their lungs or the harsh sun boiling their backs, even longer than a lifetime. He died a man of seventy, older even than Ur-Zababa of Kish, who was so riddled with disease and infirmity that his own people mocked him as The Pissblood. But Sharru-kin had always been in my mind the great mountain of my childhood, changer and rearranger of names, the fearsome presence whose shadow was so vast and so dark it covered all the Land Between the Two Rivers. I felt that shadow on me even now.

“These past several years it has been my pleasure to watch you develop into a highly capable En who calls Urim her home,” Lugal Kaku said, and I listened numbly. “But we are all at the mercy of the gods in the end, and no man can know what they will ask of him next. Let me assure you that I will take care of all the necessary arrangements for your trip to Akkade.”

I raised my eyebrows. “My trip to Akkade?” I repeated.

“That you may attend the funeral, to be with your family in this time of great difficulty,” He said. His voice was sopping with concern. “I have taken the liberty of outfitting a ship for you, with every convenience befitting an En. Though all of Urim will sorely miss you and await your return most anxiously, you may at least be sure that your reunion with your family will be a smooth one.”

I was speechless for a moment, partly because I was shocked at his boldness and partly because I wanted to go. I longed so badly for the place where I had spent my childhood: the painted palace and fragrant gardens, my brothers, the yard behind the shrine to Ishtar where was kept the grave of my mother. The balakhu-tree I helped plant in the gardens must be flowering and tall by now, and Ibarum and Ilaba must be young men. And Baramu, Baramu whose name I had not even thought in ages may still be there, I realized with a small jolt. But how could I possibly trust Lugal Kaku to return me to them? I remembered all too well the last time someone had forced me to get on a ship.

If I went, it would be over a month before I returned, and by that time who knows what changes Lugal Kaku could bring about in the temple hierarchy? Already he had made a habit of sticking his nose into my business. His messengers came sniffing after my accounts like jackals, making polite inquiries after my dealings with the merchants of Unug and Bad-Tibira and Urim when he himself was never anywhere to be found, not even at my investiture as En. I had no doubt that if I left for Akkade, business deals would be struck without my knowledge, officials and priests would be suddenly moved up or down within the ranks or replaced altogether. And I might even return to find a young Sumerian girl with my aga on her head. “Lugal Kaku,” I began, “I am humbled by your generosity and consideration but--alas, I must decline your offer.” Sharru-kin had not asked me whether I would get on his ship or not. Neither had Lugal Kaku, for that matter, but there was a difference. Khedutum in the Great House was a girl; Kheduana in the House of the Great Light was the wife of a goddess. “I cannot leave,” I continued firmly. “My place is here, in Urim. I can mourn the True King my father just as well here as in Akkade. Besides, Dubsang my High Steward is an old, old man and cannot shoulder all my responsibilities.” This was something of an understatement, as poor Dubsang had been growing weaker and more forgetful by the day and was probably soon to die himself, but at this moment I did not need Lugal Kaku to know that.

I detected in the Lugal’s steady gaze the faintest trace of annoyance, and I realized that, knowing me as little as he did, he had not expected any obstinacy or protestation from me. What did he think, that I would become delirious and pliable upon the death of a father I had not seen in six years, who had sent me to the edge of the sea to live my life as a virgin bookkeeper?

“My Lady,” said Lugal Kaku with the greatest reverence. “I would be happy to arrange for a new steward to share Dubsang’s burden in your absence.”

How bold! I thought. It was he who had put me here to curry favor with my father, but now that he knew he could not control me, I was useless to him and he wanted me gone. Perhaps he would have been rid of me sooner. Perhaps he had been biding his time since my arrival, waiting for my father to die so that he could nudge and prod me out of the Temple like a bleating lamb. I reflected that it was the death of his great-aunt that had brought me here in the first place. For Lugal Kaku, every new death presented an opportunity.

“You said yourself, friend Lugal, that Urim is my home,” I said. “I will stay here, and I will see that all of Urim mourns with me the loss of their True King.”

“Of course,” said the Lugal, and I could not help but notice he had never spoken so bluntly. “Know that Lugal Kaku is your true and abiding friend here in Urim, and that you have the use of my ship should you change your mind in the coming days.”

“If you will forgive me,” I said, rising from my seat. “I wish to begin my mourning.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“We will all mourn the passing of our True King,” said the Lugal in echo of my own words, but there was no sorrow in his voice that I could hear. When he rose I noticed that his robes were cut from the same rich cloth as ever, and he still wore his jeweled rings and golden armbands--the finery of a Lugal, or a king, but not of a man who is in mourning. I was reminded, Inanna, of your Dumuzid, who arrayed Himself like a king when you were lost to the Underworld. The slack-mouthed gallu hordes that followed you out of the House of Dust passed over your servants, the lesser gods who had abased themselves with rags and ashes, but they fell upon vainglorious Dumuzid and chased him into the desert. I could only hope the same for Lugal Kaku of the rotting-sweet words and poisonous schemes.

I resented the fact that it had been he who had been the first to tell me this news. I told myself that perhaps it wasn’t true. Perhaps it was a lie, a scheme concocted by the Lugal? But at midday Ugunu came to call on me in the giparu, and when she held out her hands to me I knew that he had spoken the truth.

In days, the temple complex and Urim itself was buzzing with the news that my father was dead and my brother had succeeded him. I thought of Rimush, so strong and proud and fearsome, a king at last as he had always wished to be. And I thought of Manishtushu, and how much his suffering must have increased now that Rimush was not Crown Prince of the World any longer and he himself was still a prince as before. I told myself I would write a letter to them, and that I would say a special prayer for both my brothers--for Rimush, that he might enjoy a long and peaceable rule, and to Manishtushu that he might find peace in being the brother of a king. But first I had to avoid the vainglory of Dumuzid, who disrespected you when you died, and follow instead the good example set by Sharra your hairdresser and Lulal your singer and Ninshubur your faithful steward.

I met with my priests and drafted arrangements for a special funerary prayer accompanied by many sacrifices. Sharru-kin had been King a long time, but the memory of the priests of Nanna was longer, and there were songs and rituals in place for the death of a Lugal of Urim that we agreed would be fitting tribute. “Though he lived far away from Urim, we must not treat him as though he were only the king of a foreign city,” I said. “He was the True King, and through our piety, the people of Urim must be reminded of this.” I spoke more because of my suspicion of Lugal Kaku than from any affection for my father and his rule.

Before the ceremony in my father’s honor was to begin, I went to the giparu to abase myself. I would follow the ancient rituals for the family members of a dead person; one of the only pieces of my former life’s teaching that served me well in Urim, for these rituals are so old as to be scarcely different in North and South. Had I still been in Akkade my whole household would have mourned, but I forbade Elamitu and Zumbu and Igiru to emulate me. Even if I desired all Urim and beyond to remember who their king had been, I could not bring anyone to do what I was about to do when I barely wished to do it myself.

In private, I smeared cookfire ashes on my face and arms and undid the braids in my hair. I took off my aga and my earrings and bracelets and put on a plain, soiled robe which I had borrowed from one of the kitchen women. Thus attired, I took up a ritual dagger from the temple and held the blade against the edges of my nostrils and the outer corners of my eyes. I had sharpened the knife to so fine an edge that I barely felt the cuts I made. When I was done, I could feel streams of blood coming down my face, thick and hot. Some got into my eye and I allowed it to burn, blinking fiercely but fighting the urge to wipe it away. Hiking up my skirts, I made more small cuts along the sides of my buttocks.

That is how I entered the temple to sing an ershemma for the dead man, the dead king, my father, before each god’s shrine: ragged and filthy and without ornament, with my own blood drying on my face and legs, staining my robe from inside and out. The priests and priestesses of the House of the Great Light eyed me in stony-faced silence, and I wondered as I beat the drum in time to my own chanting if they remembered, as I did, another night when I stood in this same place covered in blood. It had not been my blood then but the blood of an animal, and I had not sang the songs of lamentation--I had run, and been struck by Baranamtarra. If she was thinking of that night she gave no sign, and I remembered with a sort of wincing irony that Baranamtarra couldn’t strike me tonight even if she wanted to. To touch or speak to a mourner was to bring down the taint of death on oneself.

After we made the necessary offerings, I accepted the worst portions of the meal at dinner and sat apart from everyone. For two weeks I was relieved from my duties and could have no contact with other people. Even my slaves could not attend to me in this time, and Elamitu and Zumbu and Igiru went to sleep in the servant’s quarters to avoid any chance of accidentally attainting themselves. If I had been in Akkade I would have been permitted to touch and speak with my family only, but it was worth it to know that I had beat Lugal Kaku at his own game, he who had had the audacity to come to me alone and in person to break the news, as though he were some favorite uncle and I a child. I did not doubt there would be missives from my family informing me of my father’s death and brother’s ascension which would mysteriously turn up just as soon as my mourning was over. Yes, I could handle two weeks of being alone.

After all, was nothing new. I was En. I stood alone under the cold light of the moon and in it found my strength. Two weeks of bleeding and dirt and silence was a small price to pay for the knowledge that no man would ever force me to disappear over the horizon on a boat, ever again.

Just as I suspected, when the two weeks of mourning were over, when I had bathed myself at last and changed into my typical clothes and recalled my women to the giparu, there was a message waiting for me at sundown.

“Apologies, Enship,” the courier began. “This arrived for you days ago, but we had strict orders that we were not to disturb you by delivering it until tonight, on account of you beginning your mourning.”

“Who is it from?” I asked, though I was sure I already knew.

“The Great King of North and South,” the messenger replied. “Rimush, son of Sharru-kin.”

I accepted the small box with a hand that shook more from anger than trepidation. “In the future,” I said in careful, measured tones, for I was very close to losing my temper, “When you are delivering me a message, and someone other than myself gives you a direct order, you will tell me of it before you carry it out. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Enship,” he said nervously, and scurried away into the darkness.

I stepped beside to a wall-lamp to read in the fading light. Holding the box close to my eyes, I saw that the lump of clay across its seam had been embossed with a seal. There you stood in all your glory, with streams of life-giving water and tree branches emanating from your shoulders like wings, the horns of a divinity on your head and the braids of Akkad hanging down over your breast--Ishtar, goddess of my father’s dynasty and city. Trembling, I opened the box, cracking your brittle clay body in two. I took out the tiny square tablet inside, pressed all over with triangular ridges and bumps. Softly, I read aloud the first words of the incantation that begins all letters:

“Speak, messenger, to my sister the En Kheduana, Chief Wife of the Moon at Urim. Tell her that her brother Rimush, the King of the World, says this:

‘Beloved sister, our father has been claimed by the gods at last, and I have taken the throne after him. Know that we your family in Akkade have not forgotten you. I assure you that under my rule, you will enjoy my continued support in your position as En, and no force will be able to remove you. With our father’s death, it is more important than ever that we be vigilant in protecting his legacy. Our king has done something unprecedented; a thing that has never been done before. Though Sharru-kin has gone to the House of Dust, that which he created must not suffer the same fate. We must hold together the many cities of the Empire that he forged, and in that you have a vital role.

‘May my lady know this!’”

I lay the letter down with a shaking hand. Know that we your family in Akkade have not forgotten you. Yet they did not offer to come to Urim, and I knew I would have no safe passage to Akkade either. I had felt I was becoming a Sumerian, a true Black-Headed Woman of the South, but this letter was a reminder that my family was in Akkade, not here.

We must hold together the many cities of the Empire that he forged, and in that you have a vital role. It was these last words of my brother that troubled me. What was my vital role? I had the love of the people of Urim and the god of Urim, but how was I to hold together the cities of the Empire? I remembered with a twinge how Lugal Kaku had tried to brush me off like a nuisance. What might happen to me next? I was not Sumerian, and these Sumerians knew it.

But I am Sumerian, I thought. I am as Sumerian as Akkadian. I had one parent of each country, I speak both tongues, I have raised my voice in song to the gods of both. And the people of this city reach out their hands to me. They love me.

They only reach out for their En, another voice in my head chided. They love their god and the office you hold, not you. Nanna might just as easily have another bride, and their reaction would be the same. This was Shumeru, the Black Land, and it was older than my father’s aspirations of glory, older than Empire, older than man. Perhaps it was not any special kingly glory that marked members of my father’s bloodline, only the aspiration to it. And after all, if Urim were independent as in days of old, I would no longer be its princess. Lugal Kaku’s fathers had been kings since Utnapishtim’s ark floated upon the waters of the Deluge, and in every other city of the great Land Between the Two Rivers, there was a man just like him; a Great Man of ancient pedigree and long, bitter memory, waiting for his chance. I remembered how bitterly Baranamtarra had called me upstart when I first arrived at the temple, how slow she had been to grant me even grudging approval. Ugunu had not approved of me either, she had just been better at hiding it. For the first time in a long while, I felt the beginnings of fear.

Then I heard the distant blast of horns, and I felt that fear like a cold blade between my ribs.

Close behind came a crash of breaking pottery and the sound of running feet. In the doorway I beheld Igiru, her face obscured by darkness but clearly frightened. “Forgive me, Mistress,” she sputtered, “I was startled and broke a water-jug.”

“No matter,” I said gently. Then, trying to keep the fear out of my own voice, I asked her, “What is that sound?”

Igiru stood as perfectly still as the heron whose name she bore. “The horns of the city guard,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “War has come to Urim.”