And so upon the orders of the lord god Enlil, the three of us rode south to Uruk: me, Harga and Enkidu.
Harga rode out in front, always with his eye out for a bird or small buck along the edge of the marshes.
Enkidu and I rode side by side, through the muggy green of fields and the piled-up paths through the reed beds, and I felt a deep happiness to merely be there with him, plagued though we were by mosquitoes and other small biting things. I should have been worrying about Della, or the baby, or the reunion with my father in Uruk. Yet I felt only the settled joy that it was to ride side by side with Enkidu, talking when we felt like it, and at other times lapsing into a happy silence.
“Is Harga angry with us?” Enkidu asked.
“With me, yes, undoubtedly. I am an unending let-down to him.”
“Surely not.” He gave me a wink.
“You, of course, know me to be perfect. But Harga believes that in my youth I did on one or two occasions, here or there, behave foolishly, even dishonourably.”
“By in your youth, do you mean a few moons ago?”
I should have laughed; after all, he was teasing me. But I felt curiously upset by his words, ludicrous though it was of me. “I am trying to be better,” I said, rather limply, and then I kicked my mule on.
When Enkidu had caught up with me, he said: “Gilgamesh, do not think I criticise you. I like you as I find you.”
I nodded, but did not look at him. “I am not sure you know who I am.”
“I know well enough,” he said. “You are a strong wind, blowing in off the mountains.”
I smiled at this. “Not everyone likes a strong wind.”
“I myself like it breezy,” he said.
I think I blushed at that. As I did, I saw Harga looking back at me, and knew the glance for what it was: stern disapproval. But what was it to me, more Harga disapproval, to add to the mountain of Harga disapproval I had already gathered to myself?
* * *
That night we made camp on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Euphrates. While Enkidu climbed down in the dusk to fill up all our waterskins, Harga came and sat down upon a log next to me. “What are you doing?” he said.
“What?”
“You know what. Flirting with the marsh man.”
“If anything, he is flirting with me.”
Harga looked then as if he wished he could abandon me once and for all. Instead he took a deep breath and said: “You Anunnaki think you can do as you like. Lie with anyone, do anything you like to anyone. But there are always consequences, Gilgamesh.”
“I am not an Anunnaki,” I said. “You are only Anunnaki if the melam flows in you. I am a mistake made by Anunnaki.”
“Gilgamesh. In the marshes, to lie with another man is death. It is the same with my people. Disgrace for all, and death. Do you understand me?”
I shrugged.
“Ignore me, don’t ignore me, what do I care,” Harga said. “But you are going to be the death of him.”
We looked down together onto the surging white of the river, and the black rocks that cut up through it, and upon Enkidu, who had begun the climb back up to us, a wide smile on his face when he saw us watching him.
“I am not ungrateful to you,” I said to Harga. “He may not have been flirting, you are right. It is easy to misunderstand people, when their hearts are full of love and light.”
* * *
The next day we followed the river all the way down to Uruk.
“Have you not seen your father since you ran away?” Enkidu asked. “And he is king here?”
“Yes, I ran away and have not been back,” I said. “Which I regret now. And yes, my father is king here. He is also holy sukkal to the lord god An, which means he is the chief minister and priest of all An’s lands and temples. He and An have always ruled Uruk together. Well, as much as my mother would allow them to.”
“So you really did grow up with the king of the gods? I had wondered if you were exaggerating.”
“I really did, Enkidu!” I said, laughing. But as I laughed, I remembered Harga’s words of warning. I smoothed out my face, and said: “Let me explain how the cities of the Anunnaki work, Enkidu.” I launched into a long lecture on the Sumerian city states, and their dependence on canals, that took us all the way to the riverbend, and our first sight of Uruk.
* * *
How many times have I ridden into Uruk by the elephant gates? Countless times.
And yet this time, as the great walls reared up before us, and the ziggurat beyond gleamed so white against the deep blue of the sky, my heart skipped a beat.
Enkidu walked towards the elephant gates with his head craned backwards, and his mouth open. “Is it all one piece of stone?” he said.
“No, three pieces,” I said. “Each elephant is carved from one whole lump of granite, and then the centrepiece from a third.”
The splendid gate was being guarded by a pack of soldiers, and I was about to declare myself when one of the men stood forwards. He looked older than the rest: a veteran.
“I cannot believe it!” he said. He dropped to one knee, on the smooth paved road, and bent his head to me. “My lord, welcome home.”
Then he stood, and embraced me. I slapped him on the back as he hugged me.
“You have been gone too long, Lord Gilgamesh!” he said. He cast an experienced eye over Harga and Enkidu, before turning back to me.
“An has gone, and we are all to follow,” he said, most matter-of-fact. “Before the water gods arrive.”
“I must find my parents.”
“Your mother took An north,” the man said. “But your father is at the docks. Shall I send some men with you?”
“I think I will be safe just with these two, in my own city,” I said, gesturing at Harga and Enkidu.
The guard kissed me, and embraced me again. “We have all missed you,” he said. “Your father more than anyone, though.”
* * *
My father was a great general, in the days when the Twelve lived in Heaven. Now as I glimpsed him for the first time in four years, standing on the city wharf in his sheepskin hunting coat, I saw that he moved like an old man now, despite all the melam that flowed in him.
I did not know how he would greet me, or what would he say. Would he be angry? My belly sank within me as we made our way through the soldiers towards him. But of course I should have known better.
He turned and saw me, and at once burst into tears. A moment later he had his arms around me.
“My son,” he said, through his sobbing. “Welcome home.”
I buried my own face into his neck, pressing my tears into his warm skin. He smelled so shockingly familiar to me, of sheep’s wool, and candlewax.
* * *
After a while we separated, our faces puffed and stained with tears, and I saw that Enkidu was standing watching us, a smile on his face. Indeed, every face there was turned to us, all open and full of emotion. Except Harga’s face: he looked bored and annoyed.
My father took my right hand, and raised it. “My son has come back to us!” he roared. “The wild bull of Sumer!”
The crowd burst into claps and whistles.
“Come up to the palace, my son,” my father said. “And bring your friends. We are going to feed you and feed you, but first I am thinking you might want a bath.”
“He’s too good for you,” Harga muttered at me, as we made our way into the holy precinct.
I turned on him, my fists clenched. “Do you not think I know that?”
“Easy,” Harga said, leaning back from me.
Enkidu was close behind us. He put one hand out on my shoulder, and walked me on into the palace, leaving Harga to follow.
* * *
My father was still living in the palace I grew up in, but we ate venison stew together amongst packing chests.
“Dumuzi came here,” he said. “With threats. It was fight or go, and An did not have it in him to fight. So your mother has taken An, and as soon as we can, we will go too.”
“Is Enki really so dangerous that he can throw you from your home?”
My father put down his spoon and rubbed his face. “It kills me, Gilgamesh, to leave our people in the care of the water gods. But Enlil and An do not want a war in the south, as well as in the north.” He smiled at me so warmly. “My son, I believe I can bear anything, though, now that you are here.”
* * *
Before we parted that night, I said, very awkward: “Father, I am sorry. For what I have done to you. But also for all the rest of it.”
He put his arms around me again, and held my head against his. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Gilgamesh. We love you just as you are.”
* * *
My father had given me my old rooms to sleep in, and Enkidu had taken the little servant’s room where my nurse used to sleep. I went in to check on him, smiling about at the neat leaf-patterned walls, the simple cedar bed, and the small window looking out onto the ziggurat.
He was rather large for the bed. “I cannot believe this is all mine,” he said.
I laughed, until I realised he was serious.
“Where is Harga?” he said.
“We are inserting him into the royal bodyguard here, where he may be most useful to us when Dumuzi gets here.”
I stood awkwardly there for a moment, looking down on him in bed, then I said: “Goodnight, then. I’d better get some proper sleep. Lots to do tomorrow.”
And I left him there.
* * *
It was true that there was a lot to do. My father wanted chests of tablets of official records shifted out of the city before Dumuzi arrived, and also some personal treasures. And we were starting to move out soldiers, in small bands. If we were to hand over a city and its army to these invaders who were our close family, then it would be a very small army we would leave them with.
Enkidu and I were on the docks, overseeing the loading of a skiff, when the shouts went up, and the great horns burst into life up on the ramparts: the gods were coming now from Eridu, far sooner than anyone had expected.
I scaled up onto the wall behind the quay and helped Enkidu up after me.
The people were flooding down to see the new gods coming and who could blame them?
The great barges came through the city walls one at a time, each barge a shimmering glory: golden decks, painted prows, purple sails neatly furled. Hundreds of soldiers, too, in Enki’s dark bronze chest plates.
On the second barge: the gods. The first one must be Dumuzi: tall and dark, very like his father. I had seen him at Nippur when I was a small boy, and of course he was unchanged. And then a small creature, the girl Anunnaki, dressed in the white of the moon gods, with brown skin and long, very black hair. She looked to me more like a child than a great goddess.
Soldiers picked the girl goddess up and put her down on the quay beside Dumuzi. Servant women came to pull at her robes, and arrange her temple wings.
Then without any apparent cause, the girl looked straight at me. She was some cable spans away from me, but she held my eye.
She had the blackest eyes.
I saw at once what she was.
Enlil had called her a goddess of love. But it was not love I saw. A small cold flicker went through me, of fear and premonition.
Here before me, dressed in pretty clothes but not at all disguised, was a high goddess of war.