The Sighs of the Priestess Ch. 10

"What do you think that our parents would say?" he asked, "They wonder why just as I have, Dimme. Your mother told me that you gave her no answers when she asked. The only thing wrong that I can see is that I should have stopped wondering and acted sooner, before you took this notion."

He looked down at her with a small smile, "You know, you cannot turn to the girl here. Your arm is a little longer this way, and you will ruin the stitching if you change. You will have to remain a cat until I take the stitches out." He reached for her face and slid his hand to her shoulder.

"I must go to do all of the things that need to be done. Please, Dimme, stay with me and do not go. If you have any need, call to my man outside. I will return soon and I need to pray more to keep the fever from you. I would be happy if I can only sleep near you. Do you need my help to pull this singlet on?"

She shook her head, "I think that I can manage it, Ur-Nammu. I am small enough to crawl inside it while you are gone. But now I think that maybe you were right," Dimme said quietly as she looked at his face.

She reached up to move his hair over his shoulder, and then she touched his face, "I am a cat who is really an ass."

For the first time since they were children, he kissed the girl that he'd always loved. Dimme responded as much as she could for a few moments.

"I am even more the ass, my old friend," she said, "to think that I could have had kisses like yours for years now."

He did his best to make her comfortable and then left to do what his rank required of him.

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It wasn't that easy. The fever from the infection due to the dirty blade was already beginning when they were speaking in the tall grass, and it hit Dimme with a vengeance. Ur-Nammu spent a long night in prayer and swabbing her sweat, and she begged him to hold her when it went the other way and she shivered. His singlet was soaked through. He took it off her and she sat up shaking violently so that he could put another one on her. He rested, but he got no sleep.

In the early hours of the dawn, the servant fed Dimme soup while Ur-Nammu and his fighters pushed their part of the line ahead into the beleaguered defenders. He was weary by then, but he still managed a laugh when he found the two veterans from the day before backed up against an overturned cart.

"Come and fight me now, the both of you at once," he chuckled, "I have proven that I can hold off ten. I think that killing two might be done." After a tense moment, he gestured to them to drop their blades.

"The fortunes of war," he grinned at them, "A very fickle girl, the goddess of fate. Can either of you speak Sumerian or Martu?"

They nodded, being Martu, and became two of the very few prisoners taken as Bilbat ceased to be a city.

Ur-Nammu's group was released from the action and by the early afternoon, Dimme sat shivering, bundled in anything that he could wrap her lithe body with on the floor of his chariot with her back to the front of it and her arms and legs wrapped around him as much as she could. She groaned quietly, hoping that he wouldn't hear, and wondering if she'd have any teeth left in her head from the constant jarring when they got home.

When they stopped for a meal, Dimme saw the two and recognized them as she sat in his arms afterward.

"Why are they still alive?" she asked, "Those are the last of the ones who were busy trying to kill you. They were using you to teach the younger ones."

"I know it," he smiled, just happy that she was still alive and could speak, "that is why they are still alive. They are not from Bilbat. They are Martu mercenaries and fight for pay. And they can teach. It is their luck to be on the losing side. Now they will teach for my father for two years and be well paid."

Dimme couldn't comprehend it, "This is beyond me, "she said, "Why do you do this? They have no loyalty if they fight for pay. I would kill them."

He nodded as he kissed her cheek from behind. The two old soldiers stared as they ate what they were given.

He pulled the blanket closer around her. "You know so much about what happens when kings meet, but I know a little here. They will obviously not get their pay from Bilbat's dead king. They are nearing the end of their prime as fighters and they know it, but they may be very useful as teachers, and I may give them a chance for it."

"They tried to kill you," she reminded him.

He nodded, "When you fight for pay, your allegiance goes where the gold is."

She spent the night in his arms again and on the third day, they reached the keep. Though he worked with the other healers, he never left her side until the fever broke and she slept peacefully.

When she awoke, she asked about Ur-Nammu. Her mother smiled and Nisi-ini-su pointed to the warrior asleep on top of the other bed, still wearing the same clothes. She nodded as she got up and brought him a blanket. Covering him, she looked back. The two women nodded and left the room smiling. Dimme slipped under the blanket and he woke to find her wrapped around him.

As if they were trying to make up for the lost time, they spent as much time together as they could after that. Ur-Nammu loved the feel of her body against his, but there was an understanding between their families, and it had been passed to him by his own mother as she spoke to the young pair one evening not long after at his set of rooms in the old keep.

"We are all happy and pleased that you both have found each other's hearts at last," she said. "But now we set only one rule, and that is a wish from a pair of mothers. The year ends and with that end comes Dimme's birthday. That day marks the first day that we give our full blessing to what grows between you, being the first one of her full womanhood in the eyes of the faith. We wish that you wait the three weeks. After that, you may begin and if it is good, what you discover together, then my friend Yanna and I will begin to plan for your wedding."

Twenty days later, Ur-Nammu found Dimme in the tall grass of a hilltop. She took his hand and led him to Anat's cottage. "We could have done this earlier," she smiled, "and it has been as much torture to wait for me as I know that it has been for you. We were old enough for it three years ago, but our mothers asked now, and I knew that if we waited until today, Anat would lend us this little place to stay warm in while no one disturbs us. I have arranged for food to be brought here in the evening."

He was a little amazed. "How?"

Dimme looked out the small window at the first of the really heavy clouds which drew near. "Now it is you who forgets what we were, Ur-Nammu. Anat has always been as a second mother to you. But she is my godmother and has always loved me dearly.

I asked her for this and she granted it. I made my own arrangements for the food to be brought. You are stuck here with me until we poke our heads out of the door to walk back to the keep."

She turned around and he saw that her face was set in a look of contemplation for a moment. "It begins to snow and we both know that in this vale, the snow can remain and grow deep if a few priestesses command it. There is a storm coming and it is driven by all of them."

She sighed as it began to get difficult to see the keep through the flurries. "I was asked for a wish that I might make on the morning of my twenty-first birthday. I chose to ask to have the one who loves me tested by being a prisoner here with me. They asked me what was to be tested and all that I said was that I wanted to know the depth of your love for your cat. They all agreed."

Her look brightened into a soft smile, "I think that we may be here for a month. Did you have anything planned?"

"Yes," he said, nodding, "but what I thought of is not possible if you stand that far away from me."

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Their wedding was a quiet one, kept secret, so that the plan would not need to be changed much. Dimme bore him twin girls twice and a son in between, all of them changelings. In their sixth year together, an attempt was made on his house in Eridu to kill his family while he was on campaign. Several of Shahbek's assassins were killed as they defended his children. Between them, Dimme and the women killed more than thirty men.

When Ur-Nammu learned of what had happened, he sought answers and Shahbek was able to provide them. The young general reminded himself that not everyone in the city where the plot had been hatched was guilty of anything, but even so, the king, his council and the entire defending army died in one long and very bloody day.

More than twenty thousand perished as the city fell, and the center of the place was razed to the ground, palace and all. The general was known as The Destroyer afterward. Ur-Nammu rebuilt it, creating many homes, buildings, and gardens, trying to remove the dark shadow of hatred that had grown there.