Gilgamesh?” It was Enkidu, just his head around my door.
“Wake up. They’re here. It’s begun.”
“I am coming,” I said, turning my face back into my pillow.
“I can see you are doing nothing of the sort.”
I was so comfortable, and sleep was still so close. “Give me one minute.”
“Gilgamesh, the enemy is here! We are under siege!”
I turned to look at him. “What on earth are you wearing, Enkidu?”
He had on his head something not much unlike a saucepan, made from what looked like beaten copper.
“It’s a helmet,” he said. “Harga said my leather cap wouldn’t do, for real battle.”
“Harga is having fun with you,” I said. “All right, go, I will be there in two minutes.”
* * *
I wrapped a strip of linen around my waist, and I made my way barefoot out of the barracks, the men politely stepping aside for me. My left leg was still stiff and painful from my fall in the cedar forest, but it eased out as I walked.
Marad was a small city, and poor. It had one claim to fame and one only: that it squatted, like an ugly yellow toad, upon the main road from Kish to Nippur. To get into the heart of Sumer, you must either pass close enough to Marad to be picked off by arrows, or track many leagues out of your way. And so Marad, in theory, commanded a trade route.
But there was theory, and there was Marad. Its battlements were sunken and undulating, although topped, in an uneven loop, with a thin line of clay-brick wall. Not many arrows flew out over the road from Marad, whether the caravans stopped to pay their taxes or simply trundled past.
Rather wishing I had brought a cloak, I made my way up the eastern embankment. I had a table and three stools up there, under a cloth shade, and that was my command post.
The embankment was about a cord wide there, and I could sit and look out most comfortably over the track that led out of Marad and then intersected with the main north–south road.
The sun was just coming up over the hills as I looked out at the valley. Straight away I could see movement. There were men dropping down out of the rocks on the far edge of the main road. More men were coming south down the road from Kish, and over to the west, on the other side of the river, I could see a small force moving into position along the banks. I wondered how they’d made the crossing, and where.
Akka, my old friend from Kish, had brought every man he had against us, and as the sun gained power I saw columns of his soldiers snaking dark across the home farms.
Enkidu came climbing up the bank to me, in his ludicrous saucepan-hat. He had his two enormous stone battle-axes slung across his back.
“Stop laughing,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with it.”
“We should eat,” I said. “Before something more dramatic happens. Something more dramatic than that cap, I mean.”
“Ho, ho,” he said.
We both stopped to look up as three swans flew over them, their wings beating such a loud woomf woomf woomf into the morning air. “A good omen,” I said. “Since you like omens so much. Swans are sacred to my father.”
“Do you really want food?” Enkidu said. “What if they attack?”
“Then I will fight like this,” I said, straightening my piece of cloth. He shook his head at me.
As we ate our porridge, and drank our morning beer, we watched as Akka’s men began unloading wagons just to the north. Meanwhile the frontline soldiers were taking up their positions below us, settling along the edge of a disused barley field.
It was curiously intimate, peaceful too, despite the overtly warlike nature of the occasion. There was something magical about the quality of the sound in the morning air. Marad was rammed full, with every last farmer for a league crammed inside its walls. And yet I felt I could hear everything that was happening out in the valley. I heard crows giving the alarm in a distant field, and thought, Oh, the army of Kish is putting birds up before it. I could hear dogs barking, far off: I’d been told they brought their dogs to battle. Now and again, I thought I could hear an enemy soldier shouting out an order.
“Remarkable,” I said out loud, shaking my head at the strangeness of it. “It’s my first siege,” I said, turning to Enkidu. “Have you been in one before?”
“I’ve been surrounded and attacked, a few times now, but it was always over quick.”
“No, I don’t think that counts. I think there need to be walls involved, and some sort of formal standoff, for it to be a siege.”
I had barely finished my porridge when I saw a mule trotting southwards down the high road, and then turning right onto the short stretch of track into Marad. The man on the mule was wrapped in scarlet, the colour of an envoy, and to make the point even clearer, he was holding a stick with a scarlet flag tied to it.
There was something oddly familiar about the listless way in which the man was holding his stick. I had a burst of recognition: it was Akka’s nephew, Inush.
It made me smile, the way he sat on his mule, as if he was out for a picnic, but a very boring one. I wondered if he was still angry with me over what had happened with Hedda.
Three priests rode behind him on asses, and they were also cloaked in scarlet. They were shaking rods and flails and singing what sounded like a hymn to the holy An, which was a bit much, really, given that it was An’s city, strictly speaking, that they were in the midst of besieging.
“The boy on that mule is Inush. He was my guard in Kish.”
“He looks young to be sent to us as an envoy.”
“No, he’s our age, I think. Eighteen or nineteen.”
As Inush drew close enough for us to admire his saddle cloth, the gate opened below us with a creak. I peered over the wall: Tomasin, the chief priest of Marad, was going out to meet the envoys of Akka.
Tomasin walked huddled over in his black robes, with his under-priests and a gaggle of assorted city elders following on behind him.
It was really the most unforgivable affront imaginable, a gargantuan insult, for them to be going out there without consulting with me. But I could not feel too annoyed, having told my men, just the evening before, that Tomasin would try to surrender the very minute the enemy crept into view. I had even offered to bet on it.
“You did say,” said Enkidu, who knew how much I liked to be right.
The two parties drew up in front of each other, about a quarter of a league from the city walls, each fanning out into a small semi-circle. The details of the diplomatic discussion were lost to the morning air, but it looked to me as if Inush had the best of it. He stayed on his mule and seemed palpably unmoved by the discussion; meanwhile, Tomasin waved his arms, and at one point got down on his knees.
“Do you think you could hit one of them with an arrow?” I asked.
“I might just get one into Tomasin.”
We both chuckled.
Moments later Inush turned his animal around and, giving it a bit of kick, trotted off. His priests were quick to follow him. The esteemed priests and elders of Marad, after a moment looking out after the retreating envoys, crept back into the city.
I watched the envoys of Akka as they trotted north towards what was rapidly becoming the enemy camp. “How many, do you think?”
“I would say two full banners,” said Enkidu. “And maybe another half-banner of followers in the camp. Too many for us.”
“I was thinking we could arm the boys, and the farmers.”
“We will struggle to put three hundred men out, even if we make the priests fight. Even if we put a sword in Tomasin’s hand.”
We both smiled at the thought of Tomasin with a sword in his hand.
“They are too many for us,” Enkidu repeated.
The gate below opened up for the elders, then closed again on their heels.
“Do you think they have actually surrendered?” asked Enkidu.
“I think they will have had a good stab at it. But they will not have liked Akka’s terms. You know in some ways, Akka and I did not part quite as friends.”
“Is that so?” said Enkidu. “How you astonish me.”
“I see Harga has been gossiping to you, then.”
“Everyone in this city knows the story of you and Akka!” he said. “I am forever being told of your exploits. Harga has no need to tell tales.”
“Well, I am happy to entertain you all so,” I said.
* * *
As I finished my breakfast-beer I kept one eye on the enemy without, and the other on Tomasin and his henchmen as they made their way, with some difficulty, up to my command post. Having gained the top of the walls, they were prevented by the narrow and crumbling nature of the embankment from standing abreast, and were instead forced to form a queue in front of us, leaning heavily on the outer wall for their own safety.
“Gilgamesh,” said Tomasin – he broke off for a moment as it became clear to him that I wasn’t dressed yet, and also that I was sharing my food with my servant – “Gilgamesh, out of respect for your father, the lord god Lugalbanda, I am here to tell you that we are going to settle.”
“Settle?”
“Surrender,” he said. “The envoys of Akka have promised to spare all our lives if we will open the gates.”
“And what else?”
Tomasin wiped his hands on his black skirts. “And we must hand you over.”
“Me?”
Tomasin held my eye quite manfully. “They intend to execute you. For crimes you committed as a hostage in Kish.”
I looked down, as if considering this deeply, and then said: “No surrender.”
“Gilgamesh,” said Tomasin, in his most pompous voice. “This is not up to you. As chief priest, I am in charge here. I have been steward of this city for fifteen years, and it is my decision.”
“No.”
“You cannot stop us.”
“Tomasin.” I stood up. I regretted not being in my armour now. “Tomasin. I am the steward. Enlil sent me to take command here, and on the day he sent me here, Enlil said to me: ‘Do not on any count surrender to that man Akka.’ Those were his exact words. And hot-headed as you may think me, I am in the habit of obeying the holy Anunnaki.”
Tomasin’s hands seemed to spasm into fists. “We have four hundred extra souls to feed – because of you. If you wanted to win this, you should have left the farmers to their fate in the fields.”
“All the same, though, we will not be surrendering. Setting aside, just for a moment, my direct orders from the lord of the sky, I do not believe in this promise of all lives spared that Akka has made to you. And most importantly, nor will my men when they get to hear about it. Everywhere he goes, Akka kills the fighting men when he takes them captive, as is very well known.” My voice was raised now.
“Gilgamesh!” He was almost shouting. “Gilgamesh, with every day that passes, the terms will get worse. You know how he does things. And if you really need another reason, think about this: Enlil could just as well kill you for refusing to surrender. One cannot predict the whims of the gods!”
He was right about that, but ah well.
“Tomasin. Hear me. We are not going to bend our knee to the house of Kish. That is not going to happen. We are not going to spend one moment with our heads bent to that donkey’s arse of a king. The great gods protect us,” I added, with a devout nod.
“The great gods are not here to do anything!” Tomasin stormed. “If they were, I would not be standing here, begging you not to throw away all of our lives on some impulsive plan! I know you were sent here as punishment for your carousing and drinking, and now we are all going to be punished in our turn!”
I looked around for Harga, and found him watching the scene from below, his black curls tucked behind his ears. “Harga,” I called down, “arrest this man.”
“Yes, my lord.” He stood up from his camp chair in a tolerably brisk manner, whistling for his boys.
I climbed up onto the wall, and looked out to see Inush, thinking maybe I would try to wave hello to him, but the envoys of Akka had already disappeared from view.
* * *
For three days Akka’s men came at us, always in the morning but sometimes again when the afternoon was cool. For three days we threw rocks, spears, pots, whatever we had, down at the men of Akka, and slashed at every arm that popped through or over the wall. And for three days our supplies of rocks, spears and pots dwindled. The city began to get hungry. There were no more breakfasts on the walls.
“They are holding back,” Enkidu said. “Is it to save their men?”
“They didn’t expect us to be here,” I said. “They are still feeling us out.”
On the fourth day, the Akkadians managed to get men over the wall, and they were almost at the main city gates before they were hacked down. Their bodies were tipped off the western walls, straight down into the Euphrates.
Harga said to me: “Presuming you have a plan, sir, it might be time to put it into action.”
“You are quite right, Harga,” I said, ignoring the rudeness of that word “presuming”. “It is time we negotiated. But this time let’s send a soldier, not Tomasin. I will need a volunteer – an envoy to send out.”
Enkidu stepped forwards at once. “I’ll go and talk to Akka,” he said.
“No,” I said.
But at the same moment Harga said: “Bravely done, Enkidu. Thank you.”
In that moment, in front of Harga and the men, I could not find the words to stop it happening. “Find him something scarlet to wear,” I said, looking away.
* * *
Out Enkidu went, large and heavy on a donkey. “That is not a happy ass,” said Harga.
They had fashioned him a cape, of sorts, out of some sort of scarlet cloth.
“Could he not have walked?” I said.
“It was felt it was more envoy-like, my lord, for him to be mounted,” said Harga.
I saw them letting him through the front line, and watched his agonisingly slow progress as his donkey trotted north along the road and up onto the plateau towards the now familiar landmark of Akka’s royal tent.
Akka himself came forwards to greet our envoy: I saw the flash of his azure blue. Then the distant patch of scarlet that was Enkidu was swallowed up by a swirl of Akka’s men.
Oh my lord Enlil, in your divine mercy, please protect him.
“They wouldn’t hurt an envoy, would they?” I said to Harga, keeping my voice light.
Harga shrugged. “I would, if I was told to.”
I turned on him in some fury.
“He was not the man for this,” I said. “It is your fault he is out there.”
Harga waited a moment, his face expressionless, and then said: “He stepped forwards very bravely, sir.”
“Why are you still here?” I said. “You should be gone by now.”
* * *
In the afternoon they brought Enkidu down onto the track into Marad. When they were sure I was watching, they battered him from head to foot. Akka did it himself, with Inush. They took turns to kick him and hit him with clubs, and the sound of their assault on him, of the crack of their weapons against his precious bone and flesh, and their grunts as they swung at him, and Enkidu’s cries, forced out of him, were carried to me very clearly upon the afternoon air. The ground beneath them grew dark with blood, but they did not stop.
Every now and again, Akka would break off, and look up at Marad, searching for me on the walls.
“Can you hear what he’s saying?” I said to the men behind me.
I realised I’d been holding my breath.
One of Harga’s boys stepped forwards, swallowing. “My lord, I think he’s saying, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you, Gilgamesh.’”
“Ah,” I said. “Thank you.”
When it had gone on so long that Enkidu must surely be dead, they dropped him in the dust, and retreated.