Hakuno walked down the hallway with her half-full basket of weeds in hand. She was on her way to the compost ground at the back of the palace. Only in a palace would they put the compost field on the other end of the gardens and kitchen. "Why must they make everything look pretty and hide all the ugly things in the corners?"
Well what did she know? Maybe there was an easy way to get there. Maybe she would be able to make the trip much faster if she was not worried about tripping due to her shackles. She thought back to what happened early this morning. Would she be in these shackles for very long? The baru obeyed the King. If those tablets were medical texts then he might have gotten the wrong opinion of her. Maybe she would be removed from the palace or worse. Would that even be worth it to get out of this place?
"What do you mean you want her!?"
Hakuno stopped in her tracks. That was Paubi's loud voice. She slowly rounded the corner while mentally praying the loudness of Paubi's voice would drown out the sound of her clinking chains.
"I mean exactly what I said Paubi. This is under the orders of our King. I will have her transferred to me."
Peeking around the corner, the first thing Hakuno saw was Paubi. The large woman wore a simple white shift like all of the other slaves. A spade tattoo could clearly be seen on her forearm. The one who she was speaking to was Ekur. The old man looked like a frail twig against the larger woman.
"I do not understand this roundabout way he is going about this whole thing!" grumbled Paubi. "If he wants to take her then do it already. That girl is not cut out for this sort of life. Her mind is too open, she thinks too much. What purpose was it to bring her here like this? The other slaves look upon her in distrust as well."
Hakuno almost dropped her basket. Of course, this made sense. She was an outsider in this sphere. She looked around for a place to slip away but the only way to get to the compost pile was through the talking Ekur and Paubi. Biting her lip, she dropped her head low and hoped her long hair would cover enough of her face that they would let her pass by thinking she was just another slave. There was nothing she could do with her feet though, only hope that they would not pay that much attention.
This plan was futile though. As soon as she stepped out into the open, Paubi's eyes locked on her. "Girl, get over here!" barked the woman.
Hakuno kept her head bowed as she approached. As soon as she was in touching range, Paubi ripped the basket out of her hands. "You are to go with Baru Ekur. He will be your direct Master from now on."
Hakuno looked at the old man in surprise and then back at Paubi. The woman had already begun walking away with the basket, leaving Hakuno alone with him.
"Come girl. I have work to do. Carry these for me."
Still confused to what had just happened, she held out her hands as Ekur dropped a couple tablets into them. From a quick look, they looked to be divinatory texts.
"Come on girl, I do not have all day. The temple needs me to do a liver reading for the farmers."
"Uh, yes." Hakuno walked as fast as she could after the old man.
She did not have time to ask the old man why he had taken her on. He never seemed to stop. After doing a liver reading, he had moved on to a different temple to check on the status there before returning back to the palace in order to make sure the texts were all in order in the library. At this point the moon had already begun to rise in the sky.
She was exhausted and the skin around her shackles felt raw. This was the most she had walked in one time. There was no point in complaining though, she knew that. Slaves were not supposed to. They were supposed to endure. Even so, she could not wait until she could return to her room and take care of her ankles without the risk of people watching.
"Girl, what are you still doing here? Go and sleep."
Hakuno set the pile of tablets back on the shelf and turned to look at the old man in surprise. "But…"
"Girl, you are tired and I cannot have someone who can barely keep their eyes open helping me. Especially during the times when I go through the archives. How are you supposed to sort them unless you can read exactly what it is?"
Was he angry with her? She could not tell. He seemed to be scolding her though. How was she supposed to respond to this?
"Do you have a question or something girl? Go to sleep."
Hakuno winced. Did she have a question? Of course she did! She had many of them mulling around her head! "Why?" she mumbled. "Why did you uh…transfer me?
"Because you are more useful working with me than with Paubi. You can read, that is one thing that is helpful to me. I have wanted to go through the old archives for ages but finding help for that is very, very difficult." He looked down at the tablet he had been reading by lamplight. "Plus you are much safer with me."
Safer? That was an odd thing to say. Why would they be worried about her safety?
"Now, I'm tired answering questions girl. Go to bed. Return here when the sun is rising. We can get back to work then. Also you might get some free time to read some of the tablets if you work hard."
Hakuno's eyes widen and the corners of her mouth twitched to try to turn into a smile but she did not allow it to. Instead she bowed low to the old man and slipped out of the library.
When she returned to the servant quarter, Shub was waiting right by Hakuno's sleeping palette. The girl sighed in relief when her eyes rested on her fellow slave in the dim lamplight. "Oh thank Nabu you are okay. I was wondering where you went." Her brown eyes were wide. "I thought you were taken to the King's quarters for the night."
"No, nothing like that." Although she knew she would probably end up there someday. "I got transferred. The baru, Ekur has taken me in and I order directly to him now."
"Oh wow," said Shub. Her eyes seemed to grow even wider. "Does that mean you can read?!"
"Yes, I can read." She threw her hair over her shoulders as she got comfortable on her palette.
Shub moved and settled down on her own. "That's amazing. I wish I could read."
Hakuno stared at her friend for a few seconds and then shifted her palette over slightly to reveal the floor underneath. "It might be hard to visualize but this is your name." She traced lines in the floor until she had written out Shub's name. She did it a few more times and Shub copied the movements. "I'll show you what it looks like on a tablet at a later time."
"My name," whispered the fellow slave girl. She grinned. "Thanks Hakuno."
"No problem." Hakuno turned over in her palette and shut her eyes.
Gilgamesh resisted the urge to yawn as another trader came in to complain about the safety of his wares in the city. What was he supposed to do about it? The trader had obviously left his things unattended and it had gotten stolen due to his own idiocy. And after all that he had the nerve to come here and ask the King for help about matters such as this?
"See to it that all the wares get replaced in monetary value," he commanded Ishne, the head of his guard. "Along with posting a guard outside of his shop until he leaves my kingdom."
"Yes my King," Ishne said as he bowed low. He turned to one of the younger members of the guard and barked a few orders to him.
Gilgamesh got up from his seat. "I am taking a break now. Take care of things here for me Ishne until I return. Do not come find me unless it is something that really requires my attention."
"Yes my King."
The King left the audience chamber and headed for his gardens. He massaged his shoulder with a hand as he walked. Being king at times like this was a serious bother. How can there be people so stupid out there? And of course these stupid people needed to pollute his city.
He was about to step into his gardens but at the last second he paused as he saw someone out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw the tips of brown hair slip into a room. One of the many libraries in the palace from what he recalled. Grinning, he headed over to the library and peered inside. There she was. His interesting girl.
"My King, what are you doing here? Were you not supposed to be taking audiences right now?" asked Ekur.
Her eyes flickered over to him before they focused back on sorting the pile of tablets in front of her.
"I was getting bored," replied Gilgamesh. He stared at the piles of tablets in the center of the room. There was a couple on the shelves but not many. He picked up one of the tablets and skimmed it over. Ugh. A stars omen tablet. This probably was the divinatory texts library. He could never keep which library was for what straight. It was not like it mattered much to him.
"My King, you really should not skip out on the audiences," sighed Ekur.
"Nonsense," grumbled Gilgamesh. "They are just a repeat of the same thing over and over again. There is no point in me being there every week, listening to them."
"That is one the duties that you are entrusted with." Ekur sighed. "My king, I do not want you lying to Dumuzi during the Akiti festival. At the rate going I think the gods might get very angry with you."
Gilgamesh shrugged. "That is their problem, not mine." He focused on Hakuno. "How are you enjoying your new position? More enjoyable to your taste?"
She glanced over at him and then back at the tablets. "Fine," she murmured. She put a couple tablets on a shelf and returned to the pile. He saw her pick up another tablet, give it a quick read over and then set it on a shelf before going to the next one. She could read really fast, he realized in surprise. Ekur was doing the same thing but at a much slower pace. Sometimes he even got her put the tablets away instead of him.
"My King, are you still going to watch?" asked the old man. "Would you not be missed in the audience chamber?"
He did not want to admit it but Ekur was right about that. Ugh. All he wanted to do was to stand here and watch these two work. "Come on now Ekur. I am not bothering you. Plus this is much more interesting than-"
He heard a small yelp in pain. He did not see exactly what happened but he saw the aftermath. She was on the ground. Blood dotted the edge of one of the tables. The King did not think.
He hurried over to her side. "Hakuno? Are you alright?"
She slowly sat up, her arms wrapped tightly around a tablet. "I did not drop it. It's not broken."
"Damn the tablet," snarled Gilgamesh. She had obviously hit the back of her head as he could see the blood traveling down her hair to the ground. "Ekur, get an azu."
"Of course my King." He heard the sweep of Ekur's robes as the old man left.
Hakuno watched him go in surprise and then she looked at Gilgamesh. They were filled with confusion. She reached up and gently touched the back of her head. She pulled her hand away and stared at the blood on it wide-eyed. "Oh."
"Oh is right," snapped Gilgamesh.
"The tablet is fine though," she sighed and smiled as she looked down at it. "Good."
For some reason the look she gave that piece of clay annoyed him greatly. So much that he yanked it out of her hands. "Enough!" He lifted it high in the air, ready to smash it to bits.
"Be careful with it!" she cried. "It's a priceless piece that explains what happens when a child is born with three legs! I have never seen anything like that before!"
He paused and stared at her. She was glaring at him, hands clenched into fists. Her eyes were doing that thing again. Full of defiance. He would have found it even more interesting if her blood was not beginning to soak the back of her dress.
As if she could sense his thoughts she looked away. "I turned my body to protect the tablet," she said. She gestured to one of the table legs. "The…chains of the shackles got stuck and I tripped. I couldn't risk it getting broken so…"
This girl risked her life for a measly piece of clay!? "How stupid can you be!?" he snapped. Damn it. She was still bleeding.
It wasn't like he knew much about this kind of stuff. That was what azus were for! However, he did know a thing or two about first-aid. He carefully put the piece of clay back on the pile (he would not want her to risk her life for that thing again anytime soon) and grabbed the piece of cloth that he had draped over his right shoulder and ripped it off.
"I'm really fine," she said as she tried to move away. "It is not much trouble for me to take care of it."
Gilgamesh grabbed her arm to prevent her from getting up. He bunched up the cloth and pressed it against the back of her head.
She stared at him in surprise before she lifted her own hand to hold the cloth. Her fingers brushed against his as he released it. She looked down at the ground as she pressed the cloth against her head.
Uncomfortable silence fell between them. He heard the clinking of her chains as she moved her legs to get herself into a more comfortable position. He hated those shackles at this moment. It was the reason that this had happened to her.
And yet at the same time if those shackles were not there, she would not stay here would she?
He did not want to think about this right now. His eyes settled on the stupid tablet and caused this whole mess. "Is this measly tablet really that important?"
"Is it that important?" She stared at him, wide-eyed. "Of course it is. It is a priceless birthing text, I told you that…my King," she added quickly at the end.
He waved a hand. "Do not worry about formalities like that. Speak to me like you used to."
She seemed to be taken aback by his comment but she recovered quickly and continued. "Well, it is a priceless text. It speaks about the ill omens that would be caused by a child being born with three legs."
"I do not believe in these omens," scoffed Gilgamesh. "What is the point in them? Relying on them to tell your future for you. You should grasp it with your own hands. And figure it out for yourself and not rely on some deity to say it for you."
"That may be true but you are the King. You do not have the luxury like a commoner to ignore the gods. Any choice you make affect your people as well."
"Obviously I make the right choices. My kingdom is doing well, it is flourishing, what more could I ask for? Were the gods involved in any of that? No. It was all my doing." He grinned. What kind of response would she have for that one?
"The gods have just let you follow this path," she replied. Much to his annoyance, she shifted over slightly. "Also, not everyone in your kingdom is happy." The way she was watching him out of the corner of her eye made him think that comment was not just directed to the poor people in the slums of Uruk.
"What can I do to alleviate the sufferings of someone on my kingdom that is unhappy? Return one home to their family?"
Her eyes flickered up to look at him for a brief moment before they fell back to look at her feet. "That might be quite difficult when one lives in a traveling caravan community. They probably moved on without me, and will not return for a long time."
They left without her? Gilgamesh had heard of these traveling nomads but she was raised in that kind of life was she not? Or, at least, that is what he remembered her talking about before. "Was not much of a family if they moved on without you." He had guards keeping an eye on the city and the traveling groups. None of them have spoken about a missing foreign girl.
"The term family is very loosely used. People leave and join all the time. It is nothing new."
For a brief second, the King felt sad for this bleeding girl. Here she was, in a palace, alone from everything she had known, living a life that she would not have expected for herself and yet there was strength to her. Those eyes of hers continued to be defiant and that spark she possessed still did not fade. What kind of woman was she?
Before he could comment to that, he heard the sound of approaching people. He got up as Ekur returned with a young azu right behind him. The healer rushed to Hakuno's side and began looking over the injury. She did not move as the azu carefully inspected the back of her head.
A part of him was annoyed. Why must they come in now? He felt like he had gotten somewhere with her, that he was finally figuring out something about this woman and then they had to come and ruin it.
"I'm returning to the audience chamber."
She did not look up.
The King made a 'tsk' sound as he passed by Ekur. The old man chuckled softly to himself but Gilgamesh did not stop to question what the baru was laughing about.