Acts of Faith Ch. 03

"Uhm," she said, helpless, "so what would you have me do my Lady?"

"This." Was the High Priestess's spoken answer.

In slow, careful fashion, Enheduanna began to speak a silent language to Ninkurra's own holy gal-la, pressing her lips, sliding them, opening and closing them, letting her long wise tongue fashion words Nin gradually came to understand she wanted to recite herself, hymns, prayers, devotions, slick, sliding, juices seeping, running, her flower's blossom opening, shaking like a coming storm, a fountain of thunder rising ever higher, the fruit in the fields growing larger and larger still, ripening, cut open with the love of the Goddess, the juice of her dripping from the sides of Inanna's glorious, merciful, mouth.

"Oh, my Lady!" Nin shuddered, taking in deep, deep breaths of the High Priestess's fragrant gal-la, "What in Heavens, it is you oh Great Inanna! It is you!!"

It is, my little karkid." Said the High Priestess, her voice soft and yet booming as from the Goddess calling from above the clouds, "It is me. It is you. It is all of us, the Goddess and Her sisters, one in the same, birth to birth, life to life and death to death. Do you now understand what I desire from you?"

Ninkurra opened her eyes and, peering up into the High Priestess's gal-la, watched a long bead of sacred libation drip down toward her chin.

"I do my Queen of Heaven," Nin cried, "I do."

In that instant, Nin watched the tip of her tongue meet the long bead of holy liquid, and then drank deeply of her Queen, closing her eyes, giving to her Goddess as her Goddess gave to her. Deeper, she probed her tongue, sliding it across and up and down along the paths of the four winds. Deeply, she drank, imagining herself and her Queen as the two great rivers that made their Temple, their city, a Heaven on earth. They were the earth and the rivers, the confluence, the valley walls rising up, rolling ever farther too foreign lands and then meeting again in the great mysterious ocean beyond.

"Princess?"

A voice came. Had it been that of Enheduanna? Had she honored her so, to call her a princess? It was then she felt Enheduanna's body tense and so she too tensed. Opening her eyes, still transfixed by the glorious sight of her Mistress's loins, Nin did not want to see beyond what she saw because she did not want to see who had spoken or how many others were with him. Petrified with fear, helpless to avoid it, Nin froze. Enheduanna's angry growl was muffled by her no longer very excited gal-la. Presently, she raised her head and revealed her swollen red lips and holy libation wet face to more than half of the Priest Council.

"Highest Priestess." Came the voice again of the elder Priest, Lugal-Ane, clearing his throat, "I beg forgiveness for our intrusion-"

"What is it?" the High Priestess shouted.

"We must speak with you!"

"Do you not see that I am exchanging blessings with a sister?"

"We do my Lady, but it is a matter of most importance!"

"How important?"

"The Highest my Lady!"

"Has someone died?"

"No."

"Has someone been born?"

The elder Priest turned to regard the other council members. Each of them was shaved bald, as a matter of observance, nor wore they beards upon their faces. Like a half dozen robed erect nitahs, they stared confusedly at each other. Then Lugal-Ane faced the High Priestess again and said:

"Well, no."

"Has someone stolen from the Temple?" asked Enheduanna with a sigh.

"No my Lady, but a balance is immediately required!"

"Oh praise Inanna!" the High Priestess laughed ironically, "Yet another balancing is required and yes, I must be present for the accounting. Very well. I will join you soon. Now leave me until I have finished my worship."

"Yes Princess. Lugal-Ane answered as he proceeded to usher his fellow Priests from the chamber.

Enheduanna watched them go, eyeing each one squarely that dared to gaze upon her nakedness too long. The room emptied, she realized the feeling of Ninkurra's nervous heart beating speedily against her belly. She was about to address the novice when she turned to see that her cats had decided to come and join them. One by one, Enheduanna watched them walk upon the bedding and prowl circles until each found her spot to sleep on. The High Priestess sighed once again, understanding that the Goddess had in deed spoken, and said:

"My little karkid?"

"Yes?" came Nin's muffled voice.

"Are you still, comfortable?"

"I am pleased to have exchanged blessings with you in this, unusual way. But now, comfortable, not so much, I think."

"Oh. Well, at least they do not know that it was you there, hidden inside my buttocks."

"Mistress, actually, it's likely that they do."

"Yes. Well, never mind then."

2

As night fell upon Uruk, the people prepared themselves for another evening in the Temple while the High Priestess's slaves set bronze braziers at intervals along the stairs mounting the Ziggurat, and then lit guiding fires within them. Inside the Temple, the Priests and their stewards made their own arrangements. There was to be the customary evening sacrifices of animals, the preparation of food, roasted lamb and calf, almonds and fruits and the laying out of wine, barley beer and milk. Uruk's faithful would come with baskets and clay bowls of grains and dried fruits and with their bullas around their necks, strung with shekels for tithe. The Temple slaves moved tables into the great hall and dressed them while the Priests prepared vessels for the libations and the throne barer transported and arranged the three great cedar thrones around the alter.

The three thrones would be set in the great hall of the temple. The left-hand one would bare the sign of King Rimush, and the right-hand one would have the sign of his Queen, Ahassunu. But the throne in the center, flanked on each side by a towering bundle of reeds, looped at the upper end, which was the sign of the goddess; for Inanna held the power in Uruk, was the throne of Enheduanna, where she, as the Goddess's mortal proxy, would preside over the ceremonies.

The elder Priest Lugal-Ane and Enheduanna's Estate Manager, Adda, were scrambling to make sure that all was as it should be, for King Rimush, along with his queen, having arrived from the city of Ur, were to be joining them. Owing to his father's reign, King Rimush was compelled to tour the greatest of the cities under Akkadian rule, particularly the city whose principal Goddess was Inanna, the Sumerian counterpart to the Semitic Goddess Ishtar, the Goddess to which Sargon was, and his progeny should be, devoted.

Once the hall was decorated and the alter fire was lit, word was sent down to the King's guard that the procession should commence. Those of the procession included the high constable, the throne-bearer, the war-chamberlain and the water-chamberlain, the secretary of state, the supervisor of fisheries, the gatherer of taxes, the overseer of stewards, the master of the boundaries and the King with his Queen, carried in the royal litter by eight porters and surrounded by the King's guard. Only then, with everyone in their place, the minstrels began to play their drums, harps and flutes, their song the signal to Uruk's people that they may gather behind the procession and proceed toward the Ziggurat.

The common citizenry of Uruk was dressed in their finer sheep skins, the skin turned in, and the wool combed into decorative tufts, wrapped around their waists, pinned in place and covering them to their knees. The men wore no top while the women donned another sheepskin cloak over their shoulders. The land owners or merchants had their skin's hems lowered to the ankles. Still others wore a woven woolen fabric, but retained the tufted effect, either sown onto the garment or as loops woven into the material.

Many of the self-made or higher born of Uruk also wore long cloaks, elaborate garments and head coverings ornamented with felted wool and leather. Most of the men wore no beard. Many of them, as well as most women have on large wigs. The metal workers created for the higher classes elaborate golden jewelry, encrusted with semiprecious stones, sported by the women and the men: brooches, earrings, hair ornaments and neck chains. There were those among the crowds and within the procession from Akkad, of both genders, were each clothed in a large piece of woven wool or linen, which they draped around themselves over a skirt. The Akkadians had the hems of their garments edged with tassels or fringe. The draping varied, depending on personal touch, but the men primarily wore the fabric set so that the fullness was at the rear, which allowed freer movement of their sword arm.

And so, as Inanna's evening star shown in the black sky above, the procession, from the high born, the officials, the stewards, the owners of land, the farming class and Uruk's most humble, gathered inside the Temple hall, singing praises to their Great Mother, their Goddess of love, fertility and war. Rimush and his Queen took their thrones. The Priests and the Ziggurat's officials took their seats behind and to the left and right of the alter fire. Uruk's next most prominent took their places around the long rows of tables and the common folk sang and danced throughout the great hall. With polite interest, Rimush and his Queen, Ahassunu, observed Lugal-Ane as he placed gold and silver dishes of food offerings at the base of Inanna's likeness, and then lay himself prostrate before Her. Meanwhile, the crowd's jubilation rose to a fevered pitch, their song and cheers drowning the minstrel's instruments.

The King and his queen were then brought wine, barley mead, roasted lamb and a salad of cucumber, onion, wild mint and dates, bathed in a dressing of olive oil and lemon. Ahassunu turned to regard her husband and glanced churlishly at the empty throne between them. Rimush shrugged. He too was put off by the degree of emphasis the religious classes and the people allowed for the worship of their deities. To make the cities yours, his conqueror father had told him, make the people yours. Make them understand that it was their Gods too and the Great Goddess that ordained that the Semites and the descendants of the Ubaid become a single people under the reign of Akkad.

Rimush took his wine and drank. Pleased with the flavor, he drank more. His Queen too drank and picked through her salad. Rimush regarded his cup, sipped more of his wine, and then peered over his cup at the festivity before him. His father, the Great Sargon had been a Cup Barer. In his time, in his father's youth, a Cup Barer, because of an emphasis made of the symbology of the closeness between the barer and the king's ear, was not actually an attendant but the hand of the king, his most trusted council.

Rimush was quite familiar with the tale of how Sargon's service as Cup Barer to King Ur-Zababa of Kish had played out for that king. Ur-Zababa, not having a single shred of cause, but fearing the possibility of Sargon's betrayal, betrayed his Cup Barer, conveying a message to Lugalzagesi of Umma that he should kill his emissary, Sargon. However, already a master at diplomacy, Sargon was found in favor by Lugalzagesi of Umma and remained that conqueror's Cup Barer throughout his campaign to unite all the Sumerian city-states under his authority, until Sargon had earned the allegiance of enough of his own men so that he could win for himself the region unified by Lugalzagesi.

And who was it that served Rimush as his trusted ally, his confidant, his Cup Barer? He regarded his Queen from the corner of his eye. Sighing, he drank more of his wine, studied the joyous celebrants before him and thought of his sister. His stomach soured. He knew he should eat, but he had suddenly lost his appetite. Still, the music and the singing filled the room. The people, not yet free to partake in ceremony, were in the throes of ecstasy. The younger of the women had lowered their tunics to their waists, their naked breasts jouncing with their excited dance, the men offering them shekels from their necks for a drink of their symbolic milk, eager for the Temple harlots to join in their midst.

Witnessing such displays, Rimush winced and averted his eyes. Unlike his father, he did not hold ceremonial sex and the Goddesses of fertility they were conducted for in such high esteem. The Great Sargon, on the other hand, owed his entire life to the Goddess. She had carried him from his humble, inauspicious birth, along the river of his destiny and granted him victory in every battle. For Ishtar, for Inanna and for all of those who were devoted to Them, Sargon believed that the transactional sexual rite was the highest demonstration of exaltation and the greatest means of communion with the Goddess.

The transaction, the act of union itself, between two of the Goddess's devoted, was the very vessel of experience in which each half of the paired supplicants became lost within the very spirit of the Goddess. To Rimush, this was the ravings of a mad man and the self-deception of a bastard king. Any two loving people could invite any Goddess or God between them in the privacy of their own marriage bedding rushes. And what was more vexing was that his father had infected his sister, his supposed birth sister, with the worship of Ishtar so profoundly, and had vested such complete trust in Enheduanna , that she had now risen to such high status that he must surely be seen by the Priest council and Uruk's people as a mere functionary.

No longer wanting to feel any more ill to his stomach than he already was, Rimush began to tear at his roasted lamb. Then, as a servant brought him and his queen a bowl of cleaning water and a towel of linen, the music, the singing and the dancing came to an abrupt halt. Those seated in the hall rose to their feet. Those that had been dancing settled down onto their knees. All looked toward the end of the hall that led toward the abzu and to the Sanctuary's suites. Presently, not unlike a succession of swaying palm leaves, the celebrants lowered themselves, each in turn, prostrate to the floor.

Rimush sensed motion to his left. Turning, he saw that Ahassunu was preparing to also show fealty, though the angst in her face was clear. But, seeing how glaringly her husband gazed at her, Ahassunu settled back down into her seat. Then, facing the open hall, Rimush and his queen watched as the High Priestess's fourteen Sister Harlots advanced through the prone supplicants and toward the alter. They were each clad in flowing robes of the whitest linens and their heads were obscured by tall head dresses of wood, carved in spirals and flourishes of horns and spread wings, and representations of bundles of reeds and lion heads encircling the crown. Each head dress culminated in a fine, smooth, mask of cast gold with in-laid lapis above the eye holes and polished bronze upon the lips. Once at the altar, the Temple harlots lay themselves down before the image of Inanna.

"The Holy One stands alone in the clear sky," echoed the High Priestess's voice from the depth of the great hall.

"On all the people of the land." Answered the assemblage, a low yet clear collective utterance, from the base of the alter to the far end of the hall.

Rimush peered over the tables as he bit off another chunk of his lamb. In his scan of the room, he did not yet see his sister, but he caught sight of Lugal-Ane. The High Priest looked away quickly, but Rimush was certain that he had been gazing at him disdainfully. The King let his study of the man linger, but he did not raise his head again. Then, gazing back into the hall, Rimush saw his sister, the High Priestess.

"The Lady looks in sweet wonder from the midst of Heaven," spoke Enheduanna as she appeared suddenly, her form illumined by the hall's torch light.

"The People parade before holy Inanna," the gathered answered, "The Lady of the Evening, Inanna is lofty

Inanna we would praise as is fitting."

Rimush observed his sister, the young girl he had been told was his sister, drawing toward the alter. The priestess, Inanna incarnate, was perfectly resplendent.

She too wore the high head dress of wood, gold, bronze and lapis, but she was essentially naked, her skin gleaming with ceremonial oil. Yet her nakedness was decorated, her body covered in every place by ornaments, beads of lapis that cascaded down over her breasts, a plate of gold in a triangle over her sacred Gal-La, a circlet of gold about her hips, a gleaming gem in her navel, jewels draped along her hips and two sets of earrings in the shape of the new moon, one of gold and one of bronze. What skin that remained visible shown by the light of the torches arrayed throughout the great hall. The intended effect was to mesmerize the viewer, but Rimush certainly did not feel that way, not exactly. His eyes saw beauty. That was surely true. His sister seemed to gleam with a majestic inner radiance. But, his mind knew her as a threat. His heart knew her as nothing but a child and his stomach churned with revulsion.

"The Lady of the Evening is lofty on the horizon." called the High Priestess as she approached the podium, her three lions trailing behind her.

"A great light fills the sky," collectively spoke her supplicants, "The Lady of the Evening comes bravely

Forth from heaven. The people in all the lands lift their eyes to Her. The ox in his yoke lows for her. The sheep stir up the dust in their fold, the beasts, the many living creatures of the steppe; the four legged creatures of the high steppe, the lush gardens and orchards,

the green reeds and trees,

the fish of the Deep and the birds of Heaven."

As the assemblage made their response, Rimush and Enheduanna's eyes met. He knew she was displeased with his and his wife's abstaining from reverence, but he was no less certain that his sister knew his displeasure with her. Dipping his hands into the cleaning bowl, Rimush nodded to his sister. He could not see her eyes beyond the flames of the alter fire. He did however, notice her pause.

"Inanna makes them hurry to their sleeping places." Said the High Priestess, her voice still commanding but lower.

"The living creatures and the people kneel before her." Her devoted answered, "Chosen ones prepare great quantities of food and drink for Her."

"The Lady refreshes Herself in the land." Answered the High Priestess, naked and gleaming before her people, "The people celebrate. The young man makes love with his beloved."

"Our lady looks on in sweet wonder from the midst of Heaven." Said the assemblage, "The people parade before holy Inanna. The Lady of the Evening, Inanna is lofty

Inanna we would praise as is fitting."

Again, the High Priestess paused and gazed over her devoted, Inanna's devoted. Then, settling her shaded eyes back upon her brother, she said:

"The Lady of the Evening is lofty on the horizon."

Enheduanna's words were repeated by the assemblage as they rose back upon their feet. The sound of their jubilation filled the chamber, roused the lionesses to roar and shook the very foundation beneath them all. The people's resounding praise rang in Rimush's ears and caused him to wince once more. Presently, the High Priestess raised a hand and the cheering abruptly stopped.

"We are graced," she said, "by the presence of our King, Rimush of Akkad and by his Queen, the beautiful Ahassunu. Raise your drinking bowls."

The people did so.

"To Rimush and his queen." Enheduanna continued, "May they live well and long in their service to the Goddess."

With that, all drank deeply from their bowls, and then raised their voices once more. Again, the High Priestess raised a silencing hand.

"Inanna's qedeshah." Called the High Priestess.

In that instant, the Temple's Sister Harlots, with a coordinated flourish, let their robes fall around their feet, revealing their naked, oiled, bodies. The crowd watched in reverent silence. Rimush returned his attention to his meal and continued to eat it in small, unenthusiastic, bites.