Streams of women pour out from the mud huts surrounding the cactus grove and converge upon the mats and rugs. Some bring steaming bowls of stew balanced expertly on their heads. Others bring plates brimming with crackerlike bread, fresh baked and sprinkled with coarse flakes of salt. Their hair is still uncovered but now they all wear red veils covering their lower faces.
The men completely ignore their servers and dig into the stew as soon as it’s set down, dipping the bread into the communal bowls and scooping up the thick red liquid and vegetables with their fingers.
“Eat!” says Bayaja, and I obey.
Maybe it’s the hunger or the fatigue of travel. But the stew is the most delicious thing I think I’ve ever eaten. Redolent with coriander and cumin and chiles, peppers and onions and beans napped in tomato sauce, the stew drips down my bread and my fingers as I stuff it all into my mouth. It’s warm and spicy and I wash it down with a gulp of fresh water, a little stagnant but better than the stuff in my flask.
I’ve never eaten so messily in front of other people but nobody seems to mind. The others are much messier than me. I’m surprised they manage to talk to each other without choking to death.
Chief Bayaja, sitting next to the Brihmam opposite our side, belches tremendously, jowls rippling with the force of it. Next to Bayaja—directly across from me—sits Dronaja, face-bandages stained with red stew. Baga, one of Bayaja’s armed retinue, is next down the line, half-chewed bread straining against both of his plump cheeks.
On my side of the food laden mats Naruba sits to my right. The Bitrib warrior had just inhaled half a bowl of water, splashing much of it down his neck and chin. Jaruna sits on my other side, flanking the Brihmam at the head of the mat. The mystic is the only one eating with any manners, carefully wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
The Brihmam continues sitting with his eyes closed, seemingly oblivious to it all. But after a few minutes he breathes in deep, rib bones pushing from within against his leathery skin.
“That smells delicious!” he says.
With practiced efficiency Bayaja dips a piece of bread in the stew and puts it in the ancient man’s mouth. He chews the bread and licks his lips without opening his eyes or even moving. Bayaja helps him swallow it with a clay mug of water fitted with a reed straw.
I eat until I worry I’m going to throw up. Then the women bring out fresh makara egg custard sprinkled with soft melon slices and I eat some more.
Everyone smiles at me, even some of the Azkazraj down the line. At the opposite end of the feasting area I hear Kripa laughing uproariously.
I feel weirdly at home here. Despite their hostility towards the Empire and their presumptuous questions about it, the Bitrib always go out of their way to distinguish me from the rest of the Akkadians. And the more I hear about the Empire from Dronaja and Jaruna, the less I ever want to go back there.
Finally the women reappear and begin taking the bowls and plates away. Something had been bothering me throughout dinner and only now do I feel bold enough to ask.
“When do the women get to eat?”
“They eat our leftovers, back in the houses,” says Naruba.
“But why?”
Someone belches. Nobody answers me.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I say. “I am just trying to learn the ways of the True Path.”
“You see,” says Bayaja, “the Law makes it clear that a woman’s place is in the home, with the children. And—bah! Of course we can’t have women sitting around at a meeting of the tribes! Even in their veils! All it takes is one man looking at another man’s woman the wrong way and before you know what is happening, everyone is fighting!”
“I don’t know how it is in Akkad,” says Baga, “or in Libri, or wherever it is you are from. But in the Bitrib Tribe, it is our job to guard our women as if they were treasures of the Gods themselves.”
“Oh,” I say. “I see.”
I don’t actually see. It seems nobody actually answered my question.
“Chief Bayaja,” says the Brihmam, “would you be so kind to spoon some of that melon custard into my mouth? Bless you!”
- 9.3
“Gil!” he says. “You must tell us how you set the holy lamashu free from Akkad!”
“Oh,” I say. “Well … me and Kiddu—first of all, it was in Libri, not Akkad. We had planned it out for a while. We’re members of this group called Bestial Liberation.”
“Bestial Liberation?”
I tell them. Bayaja and the others listen attentively and I grow more confident telling the story as it goes on. They ask me questions about life in Libri and when I say how Bestial Liberation dumped buckets of antelope blood on imperial politicians they all roar with laughter. Nevermind that was well before my time.
“So you see, Chief Bayaja,” says Jaruna, “not all the Akkadians are corrupt. My sister always says the Empire would not be so bad, if only more of its people knew about the True Path. But their Emperor and their Temples keep them in ignorance.”
Chief Bayaja likes this and starts talking without swallowing first. “Why, if the Akkadians came to our land as guests instead of conquerors, I have no doubt that there would be plenty more black faces here at our feast!”
Dronaja looks at the Brihmam and lowers his eyes. “Ah, I remember our Brihmam. He was much younger than yours. Though that was when I was just a boy myself.”
“The Brihmam of the Lost Tribe!” says Bayaja. “Tell us, Chief Dronaja, what happened to him?”
Dronaja puts another piece of stew dipped bread in his mouth and chews slowly. He takes a long drink of water. “That was a very long time ago. There was no need to keep the sharuq strong in those days, aside from a tribal feud every now and then. I was just out of my mother’s womb when the Empire came. Before that, all we knew of the Akkadians were rumors of black-skinned demons warring in the west. My father told me they came first as explorers, thirsty for water and for knowledge. He said that we drew down the sharuq and welcomed them into our oasis. Fools.”
I look down at my water bowl. I wasn’t alive then, of course, and Dronaja doesn’t seem to hold it against me. But I can’t help but feel complicit in what I know Dronaja is going to say next.
“Your tribe showed admirable hospitality!” says Bayaja. “Nobody could have known the true evil nature of the Akkadians. Please, continue with your story!”
“By the time I was of age, the explorers gave way to traders and settlers, hungry for land to build their Temples on, with their strange and blasphemous ideas about Eyenki and his intercessions. They spat on our ways, on the True Path. And so we resisted. And after that came the Empire’s hoplites and sorcerers. I tell you—the scars on my face may heal, but the scars on my soul from that time, they will always remain. My father was there when they murdered the Brihmam. And I was there when they murdered my father, my mother, my brothers, and my sisters. And now, the rest of my tribe lives as prisoners.”
“Asham have mercy,” Bayaja says. “We had only heard whispers of the woes of the Azkazraj Tribe.”
Dronaja looks at me. I can’t see through his bandages but I think he’s smiling.
“Asham willing, those woes will soon be over,” he says.
“Akkadian boy!” says Baga. “Is it true that you worship your Emperor like a God?”
“Well … no, not really,” I say. “I mean, some people say he’s immortal. But nobody really seems to believe it. At least nobody I know. My roommate always said the Emperor is just a suit of armor, and they get different people to wear it whenever they want the Emperor to make a public appearance. But my roommate was kind of crazy, so—”
“What name do you call your stupid Emperor again?”
“Emperor Zargon? A lot of people call him the Philosopher-King—”
“Zargon!” says Baga. “Gyahahaha, what a foolish name! Asham willing, his name will be swept clean from history like the sands blowing across the desert!”
“Surely it will pass,” says Bayaja. “An Empire built on sin may as well be built on loose sand. This Zargon’s little Empire will soon crumble into dust.”
I’m not so sure this tribal chief who has never left his sandstorm-enclosed oasis would know about the Empire’s persistence. But I don’t say anything to protest.
“I have a question for you, Akkadian boy!” says Naruba. “Tell me how many harvests worth of grain you must pay for a wife in Akkad?”
“Um, I’ve never actually been to Akkad. But—I don’t think you have to pay for wives there. You don’t where I’m from.”
“Can you marry your mother’s brother’s daughter?”
“You mean like, your cousin? I—I have no idea.”
“What about your sister’s daughter?”
I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to marry cousins in Akkad, or anywhere. But I don’t want to risk offending anyone. “I really don’t know. Sorry.”
“In my tribe,” says Naruba, “is very expensive. You see, Baga, he is lucky. He is Chief Bayaja’s brother-in-law, so he gets to marry one of Chief Bayaja’s daughters. Me? I have to pay five years worth of grain to get a nice wife around here. Our tribe’s fathers are so stingy with their daughters. Maybe I should go to Akkad and get a wife for free! Ha, ha!”
Jaruna seems intent on eating his food in quiet until Bayaja interupts him.
“Young master Jaruna, if you would be so kind, please tell us of the war! How does it fare?”
“To be honest,” says the mystic, “not well. When I left Harrappa, the Wind Shrine was under siege and had almost fallen. Many mujashatriya have died. The Empire patrols the eastern coasts with hundreds of their ships. My brothers believe it is only a matter of time before they take the Dawn Shrine as well.”
What Jaruna says doesn’t seem to register with Bayaja. The chief continues smiling blankly. I wonder if the Bitrib chief even knows what an oceangoing ship is.
“Bah!” he says. “You are the chosen of the Gods. Young master, I know little of these Shrines, here in my small oasis. But I have faith that Asham and his chosen ones shall prevail over the sinners.”
Jaruna certainly doesn’t seem so sure. I can’t read him. I watch him pick at his food, deep in thought.
“You are right, of course,” he says finally. “Asham is merely testing our resolve, all praise be upon him.”