Gilgamesh: The Sumerians E-Book

Emily H. Wilson

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Sumerians Trilogy
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 601

Beschreibung

The second book in the enthralling and lyrical Sumerians trilogy, retelling the Epic of Gigamesh, perfect for fans of Madeline Millar, Lucy Holland and Jennifer Saint. It was an autumn day, in the year 4000BC, when I set out to wage war upon my grandfather. Now is the time of the gods of war. Inanna and Ninshubar sail south to take their revenge upon Enki, the king of the water gods. Armed with the master mee and struggling to understand its true nature, Inanna will face impossible demons in her quest to fully comprehend the power she has inherited. Gilgamesh, soon to be crowned King of Uruk, travels north to fetch his wife and baby, only to find his homelands in flames and his family on the run. A blood-red moon carries warnings of a new kind of war. Meanwhile Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, has a mysterious visitor. This dark stranger brings with him the threat of dangers far more terrible than Enki and his machinations. Because a long time ago, in a realm faraway, a little girl was taken from her family. And now a vengeance, long prophesied, is about to unfold. As the forces of Chaos rise across the riverlands, the Anunnaki will soon discover that no one can escape the sins of the past. Not even the gods.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Dramatis Personae

Prologue Marduk

Part 1

Chapter One Gilgamesh

Chapter Two Inanna

Chapter Three Ereshkigal

Chapter Four Ninshubar

Chapter Five Gilgamesh

Chapter Six Inanna

Chapter Seven Ereshkigal

Chapter Eight Marduk

Chapter Nine Gilgamesh

Chapter Ten Inanna

Chapter Eleven Marduk

Chapter Twelve Ninshubar

Chapter Thirteen Ereshkigal

Chapter Fourteen Inanna

Part 2

Chapter One Ninlil

Chapter Two Ninshubar

Chapter Three Ninlil

Chapter Four Ninshubar

Chapter Five Inanna

Chapter Six Gilgamesh

Chapter Seven Ereshkigal

Chapter Eight Ninlil

Chapter Nine Marduk

Chapter Ten Ninshubar

Chapter Eleven Marduk

Chapter Twelve Ereshkigal

Chapter Thirteen Inanna

Chapter Fourteen Ninlil

Chapter Fifteen Gilgamesh

Part 3

Chapter Fifteen Gilgamesh

Chapter Two Ninshubar

Chapter Three Gilgamesh

Chapter Four Ereshkigal

Chapter Five Marduk

Chapter Six Gilgamesh

Chapter Seven Ninlil

Chapter Eight Ninshubar

Chapter Nine Ereshkigal

Chapter Ten Gilgamesh

Chapter Eleven Marduk

Chapter Twelve Gilgamesh

Chapter Thirteen Marduk

Chapter Fourteen Ninlil

Chapter Fifteen Gilgamesh

Chapter Sixteen Ninshubar

Chapter Seventeen Ereshkigal

Chapter Eighteen Marduk

Chapter Nineteen Gilgamesh

Chapter Twenty Inanna

Part 4

Chapter One Ereshkigal

Chapter Two Inanna

Chapter Three Ereshkigal

Chapter Four Gilgamesh

Chapter Five Marduk

Chapter Six Gilgamesh

Chapter Seven Ninlil

Chapter Eight Gilgamesh

Chapter Nine Ninlil

Chapter Ten Marduk

Chapter Eleven Ereshkigal

Chapter Twelve Ninlil

Chapter Thirteen Gilgamesh

Chapter Fourteen Inanna

Chapter Fifteen Ereshkigal

Chapter Sixteen Gilgamesh

Chapter Seventeen Inanna

Chapter Eighteen Marduk

Chapter Nineteen Inanna

A Note From The Author

Acknowledgements

About the Author

A sneak preview of Book Three of the Sumerians Trilogy

Chapter One Harga

PRAISE FOR THE SUMERIANS TRILOGY

“I love it! Spectacular storytelling, vibrant prose, wonderful handling of multiple narrators, and genuinely gripping. I haven’t read a historical novel this good for years: it’s reminiscent of Rosemary Sutcliff at her peak.”

JOANNE HARRIS

“Inanna may take Gilgamesh as its source material, but it is wholly its own creation. In this richly rendered world of gods, mortals and monsters, the pace never falters, and neither does the sense of an epic being constructed – like the temple to a new divinity – before your eyes. The most enjoyable novel I have read this year.”

LUCY HOLLAND, author of Sistersong

“Beautifully crafted and elegantly told, I was carried away to a world both familiar and unknown – Inanna has an enthralling magic all of its own”

CLAIRE NORTH, World Fantasy Award winner and author of Ithaca

“I was awed by Wilson’s achievement in creating a fresh, but eternally meaningful, modern epic, while staying true to the tone, language and themes of the ancient poems. This is a glittering gem of a book: rare and exhilarating; a sensation!”

NIKKI MARMERY, author of Lilith

“Emily H. Wilson is an author to watch, and Inanna is a gorgeous myth retelling with a very timely message about power and empowerment, and who gets to set our cultural narratives.”

LORRAINE WILSON, British Fantasy Award winning author

“Inanna is an epic fantasy, with wars and high-born people competing for high stakes with incredible skills, but set in a world recognisably ours, a world you could imagine yourself living in if you squint a little. It will appeal to fans of any retelling, especially those who have feasted on the recent glut of retellings from Ancient Greek mythology and can’t get enough of gods behaving badly and what that tells us about ourselves.”

BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY

“Inanna is an impossibility in how quickly and utterly it captivated me and how much I need more of it… A brutal and powerful story… Emily H. Wilson is an author to watch.”

GRIMDARK MAGAZINE

Also by Emily H. Wilsonand available from Titan Books

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Gilgamesh

Print edition ISBN: 9781803364421

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803364438

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: August 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Emily H. Wilson 2024.

Emily H. Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Chloë

Ancient Sumer in 4000 BC

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THE ANUNNAKI, HIGH GODS OF SUMER

An | king of the gods

Nammu | queen of the gods

Enki | lord of wisdom and water, son of An

Enlil | lord of the sky, son of An

Ninlil | child bride of Enlil

Ninhursag | former wife of Enki

Nanna | father of Inanna, god of the moon

Ningal | mother of Inanna, goddess of the moon

Ereshkigal | queen of the night, Inanna’s sister

Utu | god of the sun, Inanna’s brother

Lugalbanda | Gilgamesh’s father, and sukkal (chief minister) to An

Ninsun | Gilgamesh’s mother, the Wild Cow of Heaven

Inanna | goddess of love and war

THE HALF GODS

(Immortal children of the Anunnaki and humans)

Dumuzi | god of sheep, son of Enki, estranged husband of Inanna

Geshtinanna | daughter of Enki, lover (and sister) of Dumuzi

Isimud | Enki’s sukkal

THE HUMANS

Gilgamesh | mortal son of Lugalbanda and Ninsun

Harga | servant of Gilgamesh and Enlil

Akka | king of Kish

Inush | Akka’s nephew

Hedda | Akka’s sister

Biluda | royal steward at Kish

Enkidu | the wild man

Amnut | Inanna’s childhood friend

Della | mortal daughter of Enlil, wife of Gilgamesh

Shara | son of Gilgamesh and Della

Lilith | priestess in Uruk

Khufu | Egyptian trader

Dulma | priestess at the Temple of the Waves

Lamma | chief priest at Susa

Marduk | boy from the far north

DEMONS AND OTHER CREATURES

Ninshubar | a new god, sukkal to Inanna

Erra | the dark stranger

Galatur | the black fly

Kurgurrah | the blue fly

Namtar | priest-demon of Ereshkigal

The gallas | demon warriors of the underworld

Neti | gatekeeper of the underworld

Tiamat | lady of Creation

Qingu | a prince of Creation

PROLOGUE

MARDUK

In Kish, capital city of Akkadia

I was mopping up after an elderly dog when the news swept through the court.

The great Sumerian hero, Gilgamesh, had been captured in battle.

Taken prisoner by King Akka himself, on the banks of the River Tigris, and brought to Kish with his hands and feet bound, slung over the back of a mule.

The Lion of Uruk was here, a prisoner in this very palace!

For some long minutes, I leaned on my mopstick, ears straining for every detail of the hero’s capture. Only when I felt royal eyes falling on me did I return, most reluctantly, to my mopping.

The dog had done its sloppy business on a mosaic of some ancient goddess. In truth, I was doing more to spread the muck over this holy scene than to in any way clean it. But I had no ambition to be good at mopping.

Two blue slippers appeared in the path of my mopstick. The king’s sister, Hedda, stood with her hands on her hips. She was a small creature, lightly made, and handsome in her blue velvet.

“I have a job for you, slave-boy,” she said. “Go find out what you can about the prisoner Gilgamesh. And then come straight back and tell us everything.”

I began to mop with some vigour around her feet. It was my firm policy never to do anything for anyone unless either threatened or bribed. “I must clean up after your dog,” I said.

Hedda stepped back to protect her slippers. “At least find out if he is going to live.” She gave me her most playful smile. “Marduk, I will pay you in figs.”

“Oh, very well,” I said.

*   *   *

Mopstick in one hand, sloshing bucket in the other, I made my way, circuitously, to the palace kitchens. It was my intention to slip through the bakery and out into the palace gardens, where I was sure to run into friends.

But as I stepped into the gloom of the bread-proving room, Biluda, the king’s ancient steward, loomed up before me in his kingfisher-blue robes.

“Where in all of Akkadia have you been, Marduk? I have sent out three messages for you.”

I held out my filthy mopstick and quarter-filled bucket. “I was clearing up dog mess in the ladies’ quarters, sir. As you ordered me to.”

Biluda dismissed my story with a wave of one crooked hand. “You have heard the news, I presume?”

“I have been working.”

“Of that I am fairly doubtful. However. We have a Sumerian prince here as our prisoner and I would like you to take him some necessaries.”

I set down my bucket. “I did hear he was dying.”

“Not presently,” he said. “Although he is somewhat dented.”

Biluda pointed one long, bony finger at a glass and a large clay jug. “You will take these to the captive.”

I leaned on my mopstick. “Why?”

“Marduk, you are a slave, not a prince of this household. I have told you to take these two things to the captive, so take these two things to the captive.”

“You are a slave, I am a slave. Why not go yourself?”

Biluda smoothed down his long, grey beard, and lowered his voice. “He likes pretty boys, that is what they say. Perhaps he will say something interesting to you if you take him his water.”

“And what sort of interesting thing might he say?”

Biluda clawed out his fingers, as if about to strangle me. “Men forget themselves when someone takes their fancy. You would not know that, being so high-minded.”

“All right, I will take the water,” I said. “I would like to see this great hero of Sumer.”

*   *   *

I put my head around the door. The Lion of Uruk was lying on his back in a narrow bed, with a sheet pulled up over his hips.

Black hair and a close-cut beard; tortoiseshell eyes. I had not expected him to be so young. He could not have been more than two or three years older than me; twenty perhaps.

His chest was the colour of dark honey; his arms and face a rich, mahogany brown. His throat looked badly bruised and he had a belly wound that ought to have been bandaged.

All the same he looked very powerful and gleaming, against the linen bedding. A lion of a man, indeed.

“My lord, may I check on you?”

“Certainly.” A deep voice; a searing smile. Such very bright eyes.

I made my way into the room, the glass and jug held out before me. It occurred to me then, for the first time, that the Lion of Uruk might be dangerous.

Of course I did not have a weapon, but I could cut his throat with the glass, if I could find a way to smash it first. Or I could hit him with the jug.

“Do you know how I got here?” Gilgamesh said. Again, the dazzling smile.

I paused, glass and jug held out before me. “You passed out entirely, my lord. They had to carry you from your mule.”

I could see, from the way he was holding himself, that he was thinking about getting out of bed. I took two steps backwards. “They thought you would be thirsty, my lord, after having slept so long, and I am to bring you a robe after this, and to tell you that as soon as you are recovered, the king hopes to see you at dinner.”

All the tension seemed to drain out of him.

“What does that mean, at dinner?”

“The king eats with all the court in the evenings, and you will join him there, sir.”

“Does he eat well, King Akka?”

“Yes, my lord. They eat a lot. There is always meat.”

“You can put the jug down,” he said. “I will not hurt you.”

“Very good, my lord.” I put the glass and jug down next to him, and poured him some water, careful to keep one eye on him.

“Where am I?” he said, reaching with a grimace for the glass.

“Kish, my lord.” I glanced back at the door, knowing that Biluda would have his ear pressed to it. “You are in the palace of King Akka, first amongst the Akkadians, and sworn enemy of your people.”

“And do you know where my man is? Harga?”

“He has ridden south, sir, with the news of your capture and the details of the ransom they are asking for you. They told your man to take the tablet to your father.”

“Ah, but of course,” he said. “My father.”

*   *   *

When I had safely delivered the water to the hero Gilgamesh, I went back out into the corridor. Biluda sprang up from the bench there, one finger to his lips.

“What did he say?” he whispered.

“He was interested in dinner. I told him what to expect. I think he’s hungry.”

“Keep your voice down! And what else?”

I leaned in close to whisper. “He asked after his man Harga.”

“That’s all?”

“Perhaps he finds me less pretty than you do.”

Biluda, looking hugely irritated, handed me a linen robe. “Go back in and give him this. And this time ask him about the war, that kind of thing.”

“I think that would be very odd. He will guess I have been told to do it.”

“And yet you are a slave, and just this once you will do as you are asked, Marduk.”

“I will take him the robe. But I’m not going to ask about the war.”

*   *   *

Gilgamesh was lying with his eyes shut, as if asleep, as I opened the door. That line in the old temple poem came to me: the sleeping and the dead, how alike they are.

I was about to back out, but he said: “No, come, come.” He turned his head to smile at me. “I am only resting.” He had one hand on his belly.

I put the linen robe down at the foot of his bed. “For you to wear at dinner.”

“What are you?” he said, lifting his chin at me. “A prince? A spy?”

“A slave.”

“Ah! How do they treat their slaves, in Kish?”

“Better than the slave trader who brought me here.”

“There are no good slave traders,” Gilgamesh said. “That’s what my father says. It brutalises your spirit, to buy and sell men like animals.”

“I’ve been told your father is a god. Perhaps he could stop men from selling each other.”

Another flash of the hero’s smile. “The gods are not as powerful as people think. But you are quite right, they should do more.” He patted the bed next to him. “Come, sit down a moment. Where are you from? I’ve never seen anyone so pale before, or with such red hair.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I sat down at the very end of the hero’s bed, careful not to sit on his feet. “Do you know it is rude to ask a slave where he is from?”

Gilgamesh laughed, and then grimaced again, breathing in slowly, one hand stretched out over his belly wound. “I think I have been told that and forgotten it.”

“I remember snow along a shoreline. And perhaps my mother’s face. But I was taken from my family very young.” I lifted my hands and let them fall again. “I’ve been told there are people who look like me in the far north.”

“And who took you from your family?”

“I don’t remember. I have travelled all over the world since then, passed from this person to that. Most recently I was in Egypt.” I pulled up my left sleeve and showed him the tattoo of the lion-headed eagle on my shoulder. “This is the sign of the god they worship in Abydos. Have you heard of Abydos?”

“Only that it’s a holy place.”

“It’s an evil place.”

He lifted his eyebrows at that. “You talk a lot, for a slave.”

“I am not a good slave. I have disappointed all my owners.” I paused a moment. Well, what harm would it do to speak it? “My plan is to escape,” I said.

“And head north?”

“No, I must find my adopted mother. The woman who raised me. I last saw her somewhere south of Egypt.”

Gilgamesh moved as if to sit up, but lay flat again, frowning. “I would like to eat at the king’s table tonight, but I am not sure I can dress myself with my shoulder as it is. Will you help me with that robe there?”

“Dress yourself,” I said, and threw the linen robe over to him.

“You are a terrible slave!” he said.

“It is not my intention to become a good one.”

“Hah! Tell me your name, terrible slave boy.”

“Marduk. That’s what they called me in Egypt.”

“A strange name.”

“It means ‘calf of the evening sun’, something like that.”

“Because of your red hair?”

“You are a thinker then, not only a soldier.”

He laughed. “Do you remember your real name?”

“My adopted mother called me the Potta. That is how I think of myself.”

We smiled at each other.

For just those few heartbeats we were only two men on a bed together, rather close, and with him naked under his sheet.

I stood to go, but at the door, I turned to look back at the Lion of Uruk. I had a foolish rush of sympathy for him, for how battered he was, for how low he had been brought. Also, sadness, because our paths, having crossed this once, were so unlikely to ever cross again.

“Good hunting to you, Gilgamesh,” I said. “Hero turned captive, who was once the Lion of Uruk.”

“I hope to see you again,” he said.

I was already half out of the door.

“Good hunting to you too, Marduk,” Gilgamesh called after me. “Marduk the terrible slave boy, who was once called the Potta!”

CHAPTER ONE

GILGAMESH

In the wilds of northern Sumer(One full year after his meeting withMarduk in Akkadia)

We rode north through ice-clad forest, our hoods pulled low against the driving hail.

My man Harga rode out in front, his cloak crusted over white. I followed close behind him, breathing in the frost, the scent of juniper, and the stable smell of my father’s fine Asian horses. Harga and I each rode one of these velvet-skinned creatures, shipped in at who knows what cost, and I worried they were not at all suited to such vile and freezing conditions.

Behind us, in one long, straggling line, came fifty soldiers on local-bred mules. The men, and the mules too, all looked very sorry indeed to be out in such bone-clawing weather.

Harga dropped back to ride alongside me. He lifted his black curls to the battering hail, and the dark trees crowding in on us, and leaned in close to speak.

“I do not like it,” he said.

“Oh, Harga, you never like it.”

“But this I like less than normal. First the earthquakes, then last night the red moon, and now solid hail in early autumn.” He leaned in closer. “My lord, these are omens of chaos.”

“These things aren’t omens, Harga. I have known earthquakes before, and red moons too, and I have known a great deal of bad weather. Why must everything foreshadow something?”

“You are very grand and modern now, my lord Gilgamesh. Yet I saw you only yesterday making the secret signs against bad luck when the red moon rose. The same secret signs the men make.”

“That is an outrageous lie, Harga. A total nonsense!”

But he had already squeezed his horse on, and I do not think he heard me.

I huddled down in my cloak and stewed for a while over Harga’s rudeness to me, and the unfairness of it.

Harga was a man of dubious birth. A foreigner and a runaway. He was neither a serving officer nor an official servant of my household. He had spied on me time and time again.

Also, I had very recently saved his life: that should not be forgotten. When Harga told stories, they were always of him rescuing me. Of Harga the all-competent hero, and Gilgamesh the drunken fool. But who broke into a prison cell at Uruk to save Harga’s useless life? Me!

Harga was an annoying old man. He was probably thirty at least, or older even.

Well, he would be dead soon, but not soon enough.

I tucked my reins under one armpit, so that I could rub some life into my frozen hands. I realised the hail had stopped; the sky seemed for a moment brighter.

Ahead, Harga lifted one closed fist; the signal for a meal stop.

As the men climbed stiffly down from their mounts, I caught movement above us: a lone vulture circling. A moment later, there was another, and then another, their black feathers stretched out against the cold grey.

“Vultures,” I said. “Six of them. Oh no, eight.”

“Twenty at least,” Harga said, his face tipped to the sky. “No, many more.” All the men saw them then and tipped their heads back also to watch the birds wheeling as one above us.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many,” I said. “Not all at once, at least.”

Harga raised one eyebrow at me. “I think you were speaking of omens, my lord. Of how they are only a nonsense.”

“I’m sure this is something quite normal and natural,” I said, a little louder so that all the men could hear. “A normal gathering of vultures. Just one we’ve never seen before. Indeed we should think ourselves lucky to see such a display.”

A few more moments, and the birds had circled so high that they completely disappeared into the grey.

Harga heaved himself off his horse and down onto the rocky path. “Cold rations only, boys.”

*   *   *

When the last of the bread and cheese had been passed out between the damp company, I sat down next to Harga on the wet moss beneath an oak. I set aside my annoyance with him since we were breaking bread together. “I am looking forward to a fire now,” I said. “A good fire and a glass of wine. And some dry clothes.”

“We won’t make the palace before dark,” he said. Perhaps his bones were aching, him being so old, so I ignored his disagreeable tone.

“It’s better we finish the journey in darkness,” I said, “than spend another night camped out in this.”

The men who were close enough to hear us, all nodded at that.

Harga shook his curls at me. “Gilgamesh, this is not the weather for night riding.”

Even by Harga’s standards, this was unusually rude; for him to contradict me so flatly in front of the men. He had been out of sorts for days.

I leaned in close to him, my voice low. “Harga, if you would address me as ‘my lord’ when we are out on manoeuvres, I think that would be rather more ordinary. And perhaps you might consider my suggestions, before summarily dismissing them.”

“A thousand apologies, my lord,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all.

“Well, thank you.”

Harga chewed on his bread, one thoughtful eyebrow raised. “Are you also looking forward to seeing your wife, my lord?’

After a very short pause, I said: “As it happens, I am very much looking forward to seeing Della.” After another pause, I added: “And also my son Shara.”

“Well remembered, my lord,” said Harga, with a rather vicious grin.

*   *   *

As we climbed, cold, wet, and weary, back onto our animals, it began to hail again. Sharp needles, this time. I rode on rather glum, my head low and my hands freezing, and my wife now very vivid in my thoughts.

Della.

That first glimpse of her right cheek, and her bare right shoulder, and her long hair tumbling so soft and black down her back. I knew at once that everything I had heard about her was true: here was the most beautiful woman in Sumer.

Just her supple, shining skin, so good you wanted to sink your teeth into it. The extraordinary curve of that bare shoulder.

I resolved at once to have nothing to do with her.

Della was a mortal child of the gods, just as I was. More to the point, she was a daughter of Enlil, lord of the sky gods, and my protector and master. I knew that Enlil would torture me just for looking at her. Of course I would have nothing to do with her.

That was Gilgamesh sober.

Gilgamesh drunk had other ideas.

If only I could go back to that ill-fated night and do things differently. But it was far too late for regrets of that kind. I had been obliged to marry Della, and Della had been obliged to give birth to my son and heir. Now I must collect her, as promised, and take her home with me to the great city of Uruk, to be crowned my rightful queen.

Now was the time for sober Gilgamesh. For Gilgamesh the family man. For Gilgamesh the king.

Ahead, Harga rolled his shoulders, and half-turned his head to me.

“This is not the first time I have seen you reform yourself,” he said.

The man had such a devious way of working out my secret thoughts.

“I do not know what you mean by that.”

He brought his shivering horse back alongside mine. “Remember the summer in Sippur, when you went to temple every day, determined to become some great priest?”

“I might have done it, had I not been called away to war.”

“You lay with every priestess. You made terrible sport of them. There was nothing holy about it.”

I sat up straighter in my saddle. “There is no need to drag up the ancient past, Harga. I was only a boy.”

“Gilgamesh, it was two years ago.”

I was about to reply when he froze in his saddle.

A moment later, he raised one hand to the hail, all five fingers spread wide.

At once we all dismounted, in absolute silence, and led our horses and mules into the trees to the left of the path.

Harga and I stood apart from the men, in private council.

“I am sure I heard raised voices,” he said. “Just for a moment.”

“Pilgrims, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“But it doesn’t feel right.”

“No.”

I glanced around at the dark forest, and the frozen sky.

“Surely it cannot be Akkadians,” I said. “Not so far south of the border. They have never been so bold. It would signal outright war.”

“It cannot be Akkadians. And yet the hairs on my arms are standing on end.”

“All right,” I said. “We split into two groups. Half stay here, hidden, to be sure of the animals and supplies. The other half of us creep forward on foot. Let us put eyes upon these supposed pilgrims before they put eyes on us.”

Harga squinted up into the hail. “At least no one can hear us coming in this.”

“Let us hope so indeed,” I said. “I’ll lead.”

*   *   *

I picked my way through the trees to the left of the path, over mossy tussocks and twisted roots, breathing in wet loam and pine resin.

For a moment I thought I could hear voices ahead, but it was hard to tell with the ice beating down upon the rocks and branches. Then it could not be doubted: people shouting, somewhere close by.

I gripped the moss-clad trunk of a juniper and pulled myself up half a cord.

There they were.

It was a melee of some sort on the narrow path through the forest. Shouting and pushing. Men in dark tunics and bright copper armour, hail bouncing from their helmets. The flash of swords raised.

Twenty men perhaps, and they had someone surrounded.

A woman’s voice. Bright orange flames; a pulsing light.

The men in armour hurled themselves away from the flames, knocking into trees, one of them falling on his back.

The distinctive orange fire: it could only be my mother, the goddess Ninsun.

Yes, there she was at the centre of the melee, with her bronze helmet pulled down low over her short black hair, and her orange godlight spilling out from the dark bracelets on her wrists. Behind her, a dark-haired woman.

I dropped down from the tree and put my mouth to Harga’s ear. “My blessed mother. Surrounded by Akkadian soldiers. Maybe Della and the baby too.”

“How many Akkadians?”

“Enough. Twenty maybe. You all spread out along this side of the path. When you hear me make the signal, I will charge them. You pick them off while they are all looking at me. Make your shots good.”

“What’s the signal?”

“The signal I always give.”

“Yes?”

“Harga, how can you not know my signal?”

“You mean that owl noise?”

“It carries well.”

“If you say so.” He arched one eyebrow as he counted out three stones from his pebble pouch. “Let’s do it then.”

*   *   *

While the men crept into position, I climbed the tree again, shimmying higher this time for a better view.

My mother stood there amidst the enemy like some hero from the fables: black-browed and straight-spined, ablaze with holy orange flames. My wife was indeed with her. Della’s hair hung long and wet around her face, and she held a velvet-wrapped bundle to her chest.

How glorious my mother looked, and yet the soldiers of Akkadia did not seem overly awed by the searing godlight that spilt from her bracelets. They stood well back from the flames, but they looked careful, not frightened.

A soldier in a pointed copper cap called out: “We will not harm you, goddess. We just want you to come with us.”

I wished I had a bow with me, to put an arrow into his smirking face.

Ah well, my axes would have to do.

I dropped back down to the forest floor and drew out my bronze axes from the leather straps I wore over my cloak.

I swung them in two careful circles, to be sure I had the feel of them.

The moment before you commit is always the hardest. Best to get it over with then.

I made my owl noise.

Then I ran hard out of the woods, my right axe raised.

I charged straight at the soldier in the pointed cap. He had his head turned away from me; he was looking at my mother. I sank my right axe hard into the back of his neck, in the gap between his copper cap and his leather jerkin. That satisfying wet crunch, as the axe bit deep and true into his spine.

The trick is to get the axe out again before they fall, and that I managed to do, my weight hard on my right foot. I swung around with my left axe raised and sank it deep into the shocked face of a young man who had turned round to look at me.

By then all faces were turned to me. No one was looking at the woods behind.

The second man went down so fast, with my axe in his destroyed face, that I ended up on my knees over him. I had the horrible thought, as I struggled to wrench the axe out, that Harga and the men had not heard my owl noise.

One breath later the air was alive with arrows and Harga’s deadly stones, and our men were piling out of the forest and into the glare of my mother’s godlight. They hacked and stabbed at the Akkadians in a very lively manner. My mother hauled herself backwards out of the melee, with Della held close to her.

A man was coming at me, sword raised. I leaped up with my right axe lifted; he moved to protect his sword arm. Then I sank my left axe into his right hip. The man went down heavy and I leaped aside to avoid his body.

Both my axes were slick with blood, but they still felt good in my hands.

A young boy was lying on his back just behind me. He had an arrow in his throat, but he still had his knives out. I put my right axe down hard in his neck.

An older man with a spear ran at me from my right. Always tricky, the reach of a long spear, when you are relying on your axes. But I have always been comfortable throwing them.

I cast my right axe hard at him and he went down with it set into his left eye, the blood spraying out in a wheeling arc around him.

Only moments later, it was all over.

The men of Akkadia were all dead or down. Our men were cutting the necks of the last of them. There was only the noise of the ice falling on the forest, and our heaving breaths.

My mother let her godlight fade, and the men parted to let me get to her.

She looked exhausted, her hands heavy by her sides.

“Are you not mounted?” she said to me.

“We have horses and mules here.” I was still getting my breath back. I wiped blood from my eyes; not mine, I hoped.

Harga came to join us, tucking his slingshot into his belt.

“We should get off the path,” he said to me, as if I was loitering there, and had not just one second before been hacking men to death upon that exact spot.

“Yes we should get off the path,” my mother said, in the same censorious tone. “Hello, Harga,” she added. “Are there no horses?”

“I’ll take you to them,” he said, as if he alone had had the good sense to bring mounts.

My mother turned to follow him, and as she did, I saw that her hands were shaking.

A voice behind me: “No greeting for your wife then?”

I turned to find myself face to face with Della. I caught a glimpse of my son’s small red face amidst its velvet wrappings. Della looked frightened and miserable. Her lips were pale with cold.

“Hello, Della,” I said. “Are you well? Is the boy well?”

“Of course I am not well, Gilgamesh. Look where we are. Look what is happening. And no, the boy is not well.”

“Let me take him,” I said.

“You are covered with blood!” She took a step back from me.

I had known she would still be angry with me, for having got her with child, and then having left her for so long. But I had hoped she might have softened just a little.

If anything, she seemed even more furious.

I slid my axes back over my shoulders, slotting them into their leather hoops.

“All right, follow me,” I said.

*   *   *

In the glade where we had left the animals, my mother was checking over Harga’s ice-covered horse.

“The summer palace has been overrun,” she said to me, as she pulled at the animal’s girth. “They came in the night and overwhelmed us. They were setting light to the palace as we fled.”

“They’ve never been so far south before.”

“Something has changed.”

“Do you know where the others are?”

She stopped what she was doing a moment, to look me in the face. “The goddess Ninlil has been snatched. She was gone before the attack happened.”

I paused, absorbing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you love her just as I do. Odd as she is.”

“She is only a child.”

My mother tipped her bronze cap from one side to the other. “You know that’s not true.”

“I mean she is like a child. She is an innocent. She should not be out in the world on her own.”

“I know.”

“Enlil will go mad,” I said. “He will murder every last Akkadian. He will burn Kish to the ground.”

“Or he will die trying,” my mother said.

“And the others?”

“I don’t know. We were all split up. Now listen, you take Della and the boy to safety. I will go back for the others.”

“We’ll head home to Uruk,” I said. “Nowhere in the north can be safe now.”

My mother took off her helmet to adjust the chin strap; her short black hair lay plastered to her skull. For the first time in my life I had a sense of her as a creature that might be vulnerable to harm.

“You saw the red moon?” she said, pulling her helmet back on.

“I have seen red moons before.”

“Perhaps, but something bad is happening, Gilgamesh. Something I do not understand yet.”

She swung up onto the horse in one easy movement.

“Chaos is coming, Gilgamesh. That is the one thing I am certain of.”

She kicked on the horse before I could answer, and was gone into the swirling ice.

CHAPTER TWO

INANNA

On the Euphrates, somewhere to the south of Uruk

I was standing on the edge of a luminous, blue lake. The shores were crowded with wild animals. All of them were looking at me.

What would happen if I dived into the water?

*   *   *

I woke, gasping, to Ninshubar’s steady face, dark against the pale of the sky.

“Another nightmare?” she said.

“No, not exactly.”

I sat myself up, holding on tight to Ninshubar with one hand, and to the side of the oak-planked boat with the other.

I breathed in deep on the cool river air.

We were right out in the middle of the Euphrates, our white sails billowing before us. The banks to either side of us were lined by reeds, but here or there they thinned out, offering glimpses of green farmland beyond, and sometimes a reed hut, and a farmer turning to watch us pass.

I realised that Ninshubar and the boat boys were all looking at me. I lifted my chin and smiled very warmly at each of them, to show that I was well and not at all afraid.

“Thank all the stars the hail seems to have passed,” I said. “I thought we might sink under all that ice.”

“Was the dark stranger in your dream?” said Ninshubar.

“No, no,” I said, smiling. “Those dreams are much less frequent now.”

*   *   *

There were six of us in the boat, as we sailed south to wage war upon my grandfather.

First there was me, Inanna. The Goddess of Love and War, and the only Anunnaki born on Earth.

I had on my new purple dress and a soft wool cloak, and upon my head I wore a thin band of gold. Experience had taught me that my official temple crown, the famous shugurra of the high steppes, was too heavy for an expedition of this sort. Upon my left wrist I wore a narrow band of dark grey metal. It did not look like much, but this narrow band of grey was a weapon of the Anunnaki, brought down by them from Heaven. It was very nasty weapon, and we called it the master mee.

Next to me in our small sailing boat sat Ninshubar, my holy sukkal, a goddess now in her own right, and sworn to serve me until the ending of the world.

Ninshubar was strikingly tall, with strong, long limbs, very pleasingly proportioned. She wore her hair cropped close to her skull. The whites of her eyes, her teeth, and the eight-pointed ivory star that hung around her neck, all shone bright as the moon against the midnight black of her skin.

She was dressed in an outfit that a city man might wear out hunting: a hip-length leather jerkin, leather trousers, laced-up boots. But over this simple outfit she wore a sheath of copper-mesh armour, and over and under this armour, she had secreted, tucked, tied and hung a shocking number of axes, knives and other weapons. In addition to this large but commonplace arsenal, she also wore, upon her well-muscled arms, eight holy mees that had once belonged to my husband.

“You are going to need more hands,” I said to her, “if you are to use even a small portion of those weapons.”

Ninshubar turned to me with an air of gracious patience. “Inanna, I have never once regretted bringing a weapon with me. More times than you can imagine, I have ended up thinking to myself, I wish I had my bow. Never have I thought, oh why am I carrying this bow? It is my great promise to myself, for the years I have before me, to always be heavily armed.”

“All the same, I am surprised that you will need so many small cutting things, and throwing pebbles even, when you have my husband’s holy weapons upon you.”

“We will see,” she said, very knowing.

She returned to her study of the workings of the boat.

Ninshubar had taken it upon herself to observe, closely, every action of the four young boys tasked with sailing our boat south.

The skiffs that served the White Temple of Uruk were crewed by the very best and the boys were wonderful sailors. Yet they wilted beneath Ninshubar’s close observation, much as baby gazelles might wilt beneath the glare of a crouching cheetah.

“I wonder if you are putting them off,” I said, as gently as I could. “Perhaps they are making mistakes because they are nervous?”

“I should know how to sail,” Ninshubar said, watching intently as a boy tried to tie a knot. “It is good to know how to do things.” She turned to address the boys directly: “But you do not need to feel nervous.”

The boys all turned wide eyes to her.

“I am only trying to learn from you all,” she said to them. “I respect you as master sailors.”

The boys all nodded but said nothing.

I leaned over to squeeze Ninshubar’s forearm.

“You will soon be a wonderful sailor, Ninshubar.”

I lay back down on the damp little bed I had fashioned for myself from a barley sack, and I looked up at the pale blue arch of the sky above me, and the clouds of starlings that danced there. The birds brought back to me the memory of swifts in the sky above Uruk, on the day that I climbed up onto the siege walls with Gilgamesh beside me. I remembered the white of his smile and how strong his hand was, as he helped me up the steps. The warm, cedar-wood smell of him. The thrill that passed through my body when he touched the small of my back.

I shut my eyes, to hide my foolish tears.

What was the point of thinking of him, when he did not think of me in the same way?

Better to think only of my duty. We were sailing south to humble my grandfather Enki, lord of wisdom, and a torturer, a rapist, and a murderer. That is what I had to focus on.

I could not protect the people I loved unless Enki was brought to his knees, and for this brief moment in time, I had an advantage over him. He did not know that my humble looking mee was in fact something of great power, if I could only get close enough to use it on him. So, we must go south quickly to take on this great warlord, a man five hundred years older than me, and vastly powerful. I must put aside childish thoughts of Gilgamesh and how he made me feel.

I breathed in deeply and set myself to practising my use of the master mee, since our fates now depended on it.

My mee, properly used, could allow me to take control of another Anunnaki. I had already used it to overcome my brother, the sun god. The mee also allowed me to see, in my mind’s eye, a map of where all the high gods were. With practise I could now see not only the Anunnaki, but also their half-god offspring and even their mortal children. With my eyes shut, could I sense Gilgamesh somewhere to the north? He had gone to fetch his wife back to Uruk. I had a flash of him, on foot, on a path. He was looking up at someone on horseback. Had something gone wrong?

I must not think of Gilgamesh.

I dragged my attention around to the south, to the city of my grandfather Enki.

There, a clot of lights: the ancient city was home to many gods.

At the heart of the city, the light that was my grandfather Enki. The king of the water gods, in the Temple of the Aquifer; the man I intended to bring to his knees.

Enki was only a pattern in the blue, but for a moment I could see him so clearly. He was leaning back in a chair, one hand outstretched. Was he stroking one of my lions? He had kept them with him when he sent me north to Uruk.

Yes, he was stroking a lion, and speaking to her.

And now he was looking straight at me.

I withdrew as fast as I could, opening my eyes, pulling myself upright, lurching back into the world of light.

He could not possibly have seen me. Could he?

My heart beat hard and ragged.

“So many hippos,” Ninshubar was saying, waving a hand to the west bank. She had not noticed my upset.

Hippos, small and large, were standing half in and half out of the water, all their eyes upon our small vessel as we passed. I breathed in and out, steadying myself.

“It is strange this attraction you hold for wild creatures,” Ninshubar said. “I wonder what it is they want from you.”

“I cannot say,” I said. There were often animals in my dreams, always looking at me, always expectant. But I did not know what they expected from me.

There was then some flapping of a rope, and confusion. A sail blew into my face; a boy scrambled to right things.

When all was shipshape again, Ninshubar turned to me and said: “Let us go over your plan.”

“Very well,” I said, straightening the gold band on my head. “We will enter the city and ask to see my grandfather. We will claim to come in peace. And then I will overcome him with the master mee.”

“Which he cannot know you have.”

“I don’t think he can possibly know about my mee. It is probable he knows that I have sent his son down to the underworld. So many people are talking about that. Word is sure to have gone south ahead of us. But I do not think he can yet know about the mee.”

“And when you succeed in overpowering him, what then?”

“Then we will empty his treasury of all his Anunnaki weapons, and bring them home with us to Uruk. You will have your pick of all these weapons, should they try to stop us leaving.”

Ninshubar was nodding, thinking. “And Enki. What of him?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

“If we leave him alive, he will always be a threat.”

“I’m not sure I’m a killer,” I said.

She nodded, her mouth flat.

“Ninshubar, I know it is not much of a plan,” I said.

“No, no,” she said. “It is a good plan. It is also the only plan we have.”

“But we are throwing ourselves south with nothing but these few mees we have, when my grandfather Enki has an army and an arsenal of mees. So if I cannot overcome him, or if I cannot even get close enough to try, then we are in trouble.”

“It is true that more weapons would be welcome,” she said, frowning down at her mees.

I lifted my eyebrows at her.

“Weapons of the gods, I mean,” she said.

“I will get you more mees. You will barely be able to walk, for all the mees you will be wearing. Just as I promised you, when you became my sukkal.”

Ninshubar stretched out her long legs. “You also promised me palaces,” she said, with a smile. “And silver. And vast lands.”

“All of that will come to you, Ninshubar, whether you want those things or not.”

“Inanna, a simple plan is not a bad plan. You will overcome your grandfather with the master mee and force him to give us all his weapons. Then we will make our escape. And I will be at your side for all of it.”

She leaned over and dropped one warm kiss on the top of my head.

“One step and then the next, Inanna.”

CHAPTER THREE

ERESHKIGAL

In the underworld

I was working very hard on my history of the Anunnaki. After I pressed each mark into the clay, I would hold the tablet up to the candlelight, to make sure I had it exactly right.

We have many names for the underworld. Sometimes we call it Ganzir, or the Dark City, and sometimes the Great Below. Of course, its real name is the Kur.

“My queen?”

It was my lovely Namtar, first amongst my black-cloaked priest-demons. He had a lovely furry face, big fox ears, and yellow eyes like a lizard.

Namtar bowed low to the floor.

“My lady, everyone is ready for you in the Black Temple.”

“Oh,” I said, frowning. Time played tricks on me when I was writing my history. “Namtar, let me just follow this thought through.”

I picked up my bone stylus again and bent back over my tablet.

The Kur is simple in structure, although I have made it more complicated with my clever adjustments.

To enter the Kur from the outside, you must pass through seven gates. These gates are designed to keep the elements out. After the seventh gate, there is the special room where my Dark City now stands. At the heart of this room, there stands the gate that leads to Heaven and perhaps many other realms.

Now there must always be an Anunnaki in the underworld, to make sure the gates between the realms stay shut. Or that is what my grandfather Enki told me, when he dragged me down here kicking and screaming.

I became aware of Namtar once more, although I had not heard him make a noise.

“Is there something else, Namtar?”

He lifted a fur-covered hand to his snout and coughed politely. “My lady, they have all gathered just as you requested, for the rites, and they have been waiting there for three bells.”

“Three bells!” I was astonished.

“All of the temple candles are alight. Just as you requested.”

Namtar was being clever with me. He knew how much I worried about the candles.

All the same: what a waste!

“Send in the dressers then. I will work on my history tonight.”

Namtar stood up straight, turned to the door, and with an authoritative flick of one hand, brought in all my dresser-demons, a great troupe of them. They were like mice, but with clever little hands for sewing and each about the size of a cat. They came scuttling in, with my black temple robes stretched out between them, and then dashed back out for my crown and other marks of office.

“My darling little creatures,” I said, beaming after them. I was so lonely, in the underworld, until I worked out how to make my demons.

Namtar took one step back to let the dressers pass back and forth. “We long for you to read us the new parts of your history, my queen.”

“I am not sure the visitors have been appreciating it,” I said, frowning down at my tablet. “I have seen them roll their eyes when I read.”

“My queen, I am quite sure they are very interested.” He kept his lizard eyes turned from mine, as he always did when he lied.

“I am writing the true history of the Anunnaki. You would think everyone would be interested in that.”

“Well quite, my lady.”

“We have transformed the Earth since we descended from Heaven. Our history is the history of all the civilised world. How could they not be interested?’

“Exactly, my lady.”

“And everything I have done to the Kur, to make it just like the underworld in the stories. Is that of interest to no one?”

“My lady, my thoughts exactly.”

The dressers returned with my crown, orb, and jewellery, and these were laid out next to my robes on my bedspread.

“Help me stand, will you?” I said to Namtar.

He put two practised hands out to me, so that I could pull on him while I stood up from my desk. Together we walked over to my bed, and he helped me sit down.

“How is your back today, your excellence?”

“It is not unbearable.” I put my arms out, so that he could get my cloak and my bed robes off me. I winced as he pulled off my under-tunic.

“My lady, the holy rites will help you with your pain.”

A pulse of delicious anticipation ran through me, at the thought of what was about to happen in temple.

“They do say the plants grow stronger in the fields,” I said, “when the ground has been ploughed.”

Namtar and I smiled at each other.

“Exactly, my lady,” he said.

*   *   *

We walked down twisting corridors to the doors of the Black Temple. Namtar led the way with his oil lantern held high. It threw some small light upon the narrow hallway ahead and upon the dust that swirled around us and gathered in drifts along the walls.

I walked behind the priest-demon, heavy in my temple robes, and with the high crown of the underworld, carved in obsidian, pressing into my curls. My black slippers left crisp footprints in the dust that lay thick over the flagstones.

Behind me came the dressers, ringing the wooden bells that they were only allowed to use in ceremony.

Last came my two silver gallas, first amongst the monsters that dwelt in the Dark City. One had the look of a priest, but he was not a priest. The other had the look of a warrior, but he was not a warrior. Both, though, were killers.

All the other demons of the underworld, I had created. These two, though, were a different sort of monster, built by creatures long dead, and mysterious even to me.

*   *   *

At the entrance to the temple, what a pretty scene awaited us!

I had built the Black Temple as the inverse of the White Temple at Uruk; that was the secret of it. What was black in the temple above was white down here, and vice versa. And instead of the bright jewels set into the columns of the White Temple, here the great pillars were studded with obsidian and sea coal.

Now a thousand candles threw their caressing light upon the black and sparkling columns that lined the central aisle. They lit up, too, the dark paintings of the Anunnaki on the walls all around. As the candlelight flickered, the holy figures of my family seemed to move a little, turning their hard faces to look over at me.

The fluttering candlelight also fell upon my beloved demons, sitting so neat and good in the pews, their eyes all wide and turned to me, all in their very best temple clothes and with their fur brushed to a high sheen. Oh, my precious friends!

It also lit up my two visitors.

I had been smiling; now my face fell hard and heavy as I took in the sight of the two of them.

First there was Dumuzi, son of my grandfather Enki, and estranged husband of my sister Inanna. He had been given to me by my sister as payment for her freedom from the underworld, and he was mine now to do as I pleased with.

Dumuzi was standing, hands on hips, beside the sacred bed that had been set up by the altar. He was in temple robes that could be pulled off quickly for the ceremony. He would have looked very fine to me, in his slim elegance, if it were not for the scowl upon his face.

It was not such a great dishonour to serve me in temple. Did he need to look so unhappy?

And then there was the dark stranger, who called himself Erra, sat at the back of the congregation.

The dark stranger leaned back in his seat, in his black-scaled armour and long, black cape, with his legs crossed before him. He had one hand stretched out along the back of the pew, while the other shielded his eyes from the candlelight.

The dark stranger was tall, thick-set, and snub-nosed. Even here, in temple, he liked to keep his hood pulled over his face so that it was always in shadow. He said he was a visitor from Heaven. He said he had come to us through the eighth gate, which was never meant to open. He said he only sought passage through to the realm of light. But how could I be sure of his name, or where he had really come from, or what he wanted with the world above?

“Are you ready, my lady?” Namtar whispered to me.

I smoothed out my frown. “I am ready.” I turned my attention to the sacred bed.

The dressers came to untie the knots in my robe, pulling my dress from me, so that I stood naked before the sacred bed. They hurried over to Dumuzi next and stripped him down too.

I stood there for a few moments, naked, my chin lifted, then with the help of my priest-demon Namtar, I got down on the velvet-covered bed and crawled into the centre of it. With some pain, I turned myself over and lay down on my back, my breasts cradled in my hands, my knees raised, ready for the rites.

As the demons began to sing and beat their sticks on the back of the pews, Dumuzi kneeled on the bed, shuffled over to me on his knees, and put his hands on my thighs.

He still looked sullen, but I could not deny that he was beautiful. He had his father’s colouring: the same dark-brown hair, the bronze sheen to his skin, the carved nose. That little black beauty spot near the curve of his upper lip.

Well anyway what did it matter, how unhappy he looked to be there, looking down upon me? This was a duty he was raised to, and he would serve me well.

As Dumuzi lay down to begin his work, I turned, before I shut