Chapter 19 - City of Love
Chiefdom of Anna, Gardens of Eden. SW Asia
A nomad caravan treks northwards across a grassy wild Eden coveted by an encroaching desert. One day the turf over which they tread will be consumed by sands, as lands further west were once washed green by monsoons, to lie buried beneath sand dunes.
Oxen, porters and equine beasts carry the burden of loads. No horses, they remain wild across Eurasian steppes far to the north of this plain. Rather, asses, and onagers stolen as foals from wild herds. Made hoofed servants that carry a cargo of sheepskins for their human masters. Nomad porters share this burden, marching alongside in tired steps. Among these desert folk strides a beautiful, proud young woman. Much of her face, shielded from dust by a scarf of fine weave. She wears a sheepskin skirt around her waist, and a brutal bracelet of lion claws over a wrist. Over her back, a long coat cut from the hide of the lion that she slayed.
This trophy coat keeps Ittidu warm on a cold desert night. She’s continued to transform during her stay with the Qabelya. No longer a sweet but nervous child, nor the starved wretch of a farm yard. This Ittidu paces taller as the daughter of the Martyr of Nammu, princess of the delta, and the slayer of the lion.
On the first day of trekking with Tabell’s caravan, Ittidu could see a thin strip of green on the horizon. The mastered Eden, a fertile floodplain. This belt of lushness now reaches around to engulf the caravan of nomads and beasts. Gardens of wheat, legumes, and barley radiate in plots intersected by freshly engineered irrigation. A lack of human abodes, twitches at thoughts. It's as though the compounds, mud and reed huts of local barbarians have been sucked clean from the landscape. Still she spies the semi-naked bodies of peasants as they tend to their beasts or toil the soils.
Where do they rest, eat and sleep with their families? She asks herself
The caravan follows the trail to a canal crossing where a raft pulled by ropes acts as a ferry. Qabelyan drivers use rods to beat oxen, sheep, and blindfolded asses into boarding the raft. Ittidu boards alongside her desert brethren. A solitary sheepskin passes the palms of the ferry master, and the strong arms of his sweaty, naked labourers pull heavy ropes. As they cross the canal, Ittidu thinks back to that day when Uncle Mallah swept her onto his reed-boat. Then she nervously trembled, but now she’s fortified by the spirit of a moon sister. Unafraid and confident, listening to nomads who whisper charms into the ears of blindfolded beasts.
Ittidu scans the City of Anna lying scattered over high ground beyond the canal. Tall public buildings weave with long walls delineating wide open spaces. Together these form a grand sanctuary of Anna’s gods.
‘It's there,’ reports Tabell, ‘Caravans such as ours may unload their treasures from afar. A magnificent plaza, a public terrace laid in front of the temples. There merchants barter and profit’.
She ascertains some of the great buildings around the sanctuary are grain stores and meeting houses or forums. Others are shrines, workshops, brothels and inns. Rumours of a new cult in Anna, have reached her ears. This new cult is dedicated not to any old god of the waters, nor of the wheat, or cattle. It's dedicated to a new kind of deity, a love goddess named Inanna. Ittidu concludes it is this cult that has sucked the local countryside dry of communes. Inanna beckons for more citizens to renounce their barbarity of prehistory, and to join her in this city. Inanna is a beacon for the brand new civilisation. Tabell promises to Ittidu,
‘Here in this splendid new civilisation you'll encounter many exotic foreigners, and on its streets, in its shrines and out on the plaza, hear the babble of every language of the world’.
The ferry bumps gently against the buffers of Anna’s bankside. Rope pullers busily throw down ramps. Drivers beat beasts forward onto a new terra firma. Ittidu joins them onto the earth of a goddess. Blindfolds are removed from asses and then the caravan presses up a stony track climbing the shallow sides of Anna’s escarpment. This city is too fresh to have sprouted walls or town gates. Civilisation here is a recent and accidental experiment. Spawned by religion, urban growth remains organic and unrestrained around its margins. It flourishes around a holy sanctuary, the dwelling places of deities. Now it spreads out freely along trails spidering out in a trial of a new way of life.
The most eager of unlicensed traders step forward before they reach the first dwellings of pauper-citizens, where clay has been roughly slapped onto sheets of cut reed. The toothless and wrinkled brown faces of bent grandmothers rush towards the caravan of the Qabelya. Keen to exchange their produce of Eden’s gardens. The leathered mouths of these old women gape, when one draws their attention to Ittidu’s lion-hide coat as another points at her bracelet of lion claws. They see above her face scarf, her beautiful young hazel eyes These civilised grandmothers of civilisation are in awe of the mysterious and alluring princess from the desert. Ittidu overhears their words,
‘Who’s that girl? What barbarian beauty. She wears the skin of the beast! Is she the lion slayer?’ Ittidu hears this, senses their admiration and shamelessly bathes in her new legend.
The nomads’ procession moves onto paved streets, where tall buildings of two or even three stories high tower over. Ittidu hears innkeepers beckon for nomads to trade for their beer and bread. Harimtu prostitutes of Inanna lean out from the openings on each storey to jiggle their curves of oiled flesh. They call out for the trade and embrace of a desert rover. The roadway opens to the public space of the outer sanctuary. This is the plaza of Anna where snake charmers, magicians and exotic dancers compete next to stalls of bakers, coppersmiths, and jewellers. There are gamesters, and spice dealers. As Tabell had promised Ittidu, she hears every tongue of the world as they cluck from avenues of exchange. They call out for corn, sheepskins, hides, leather, flesh, and for the fibres of yarns.
Tabell’s caravan parades unphased past these merchants. He has a family contract to supply produce to a cousin operating in this plaza. Tabell flaunts the laws and tithes of Uguli by bringing his sheepskins to the markets of Anna. Uguli has decreed that the Qabelya must trade only in the market of Engur where his temple may tax their profits. Despite this new law, Tabell intends to trade only with his cousin here in Anna who will exchange according to the needs of their tribe.
They pass by an area of the plaza used to exchange livestock. Tabell points to a solitary young camel within its small pen,
‘Only a fool would trade for such a creature of the desert. It’d never be tamed to be of any use’. He promotes the onagers as having greater potential, regardless of their problematic tempers,
‘I know of husbandmen who seek to breed the ass in captivity’ he brags.
Smiles lighten Ittidu’s features when they pass crowds of children attracted to pens of puppies, lambs and piglets. More youths are busy around a small menagerie of exotic creatures taken from the wilds. Boys dare one another to poke their stick at a caged leopard, whilst colourful parrots and playful monkeys screech loudly at their antics.
They pass by a potters’ row. Children kick around turntables, enabling women to skilfully paint bucranium onto delicate pots. These innocent potters here don't know that they invent the wheel. Smoke churns from dung fired kilns joining the emissions of the bakers and alchemists. Coppersmiths fashion new treasures of bright, shiny metals.
The caravan reaches its destination of the textile quarters. More greedy merchants rush up to barter. Tabell waves them all aside but one. A painted and jewelled woman several years the senior of Ittidu. This brazen citizen pushes her way past competition to reach Tabell. Ittidu has never before seen anyone quite like this civilised, confident woman dressed in fine, patterned robes of wool, her plaited hair dyed the colour of copper. A woman who’s been blessed with natural beauty that she enhances with lashings of cosmetics. The colourful weave of her soft clothing clings to her curves.
Yet this vision of feminine loveliness continues to push and shove as she spits out guttural curses in her semitic tongue. This she does until finally she stands in front of Tabell. To the shock and distress of Ittidu, this beautiful citizen throws herself into his arms. Even though Tabell has shown no romantic intent towards Ittidu, she had harboured her own shy interest. Ittidu watches with her jaw dropped as the painted hussy plants her lips over those of her own saviour. It hadn't occurred that her handsome prince of the desert could have lovers in every city or farmstead of Eden. Ittidu’s emotions are confused.
Finally a blushing rover is released from the constriction of a painted lady of Anna. He faces Ittidu and sees the hurt betrayed by her eyes.
Tabell explains, ‘Excuse us, Ittidu. Please meet Šamkat, my cousin and merchant of Anna. The procurer of all of the delights of civilisation. Šamkat, please meet my dear friend Ittidu, daughter of En Arrapu of Nammu, a fugitive of Engur, and the slayer of the lion that she wears’.
Ittidu feels a fool for not imagining Tabell’s cousin in Anna could be a glamorous businesswoman. It's as she remains embarrassed that suddenly, Šamkat lurches forth to coil herself around Ittidu in the same manner as she'd done with Tabell. Before Ittidu can retreat she finds the woman’s oily lips planted firmly on top of her own, as she is squeezed and fondled as Šamkat’s next victim.
Ittidu is frozen with shock until Šamkat finally withdraws her predatory lips and releases her constrictions. It is Ittidu who now blushes bright red. The copper-haired woman of this city, continues to stare at her, as a snake might view a delicious mouse. The citizen licks at her painted lips then asks of Tabell,
‘Darling Cousin, she’s so sweet, so heroic yet innocent. Absolutely divine! Where in the desert did you find her? Can Šamkat play more with your lion-slayer?’.
Tabell laughs politely, wrapping a safeguard arm around Ittidu’s waist, ‘Come Šamkat. Ittidu isn't an item of trade but is a friend. Not some cargo for you to barter for. Ittidu is a delta princess and her own free self. Come, spare her, and see my sheepskins as my men unpack. See their soft fleeces of the kind that you'll exchange generously for. Let’s first do business for pleasure must wait’.
Ittidu has forced a polite smile. She mulls over this bizarre encounter with a merchant woman of Anna,
This is a strange place with odd ways in this new environment of civilisation.