Chapter Fourteen - Garden of thorns

Eneduanna wandered through the gardens of the inner-city. The grass pricked against her bare feet. Here she was, surrounded and sheltered from the outside world by yet another layer. This time built not of brick and red soldiers, but one of tall hedges and rose thorns.

Here, in this maze of green, nothing would reach her. No needs, no begging. Even the sounds of the grand city around her muffled and silenced.

Large flower-filled squares surrounded by hedges. Forested parts, ponds, a multitude of fine walkways through carefully maintained nature. She foraged deeper into the wilder, more unkempt parts of the gardens. The paths gradually became smaller and increasingly contested by thick foliage. At her sides roses clambered up into the air on long green thorny stalks, red and white flowers. The petals had begun to fall and curl up into rotting debris in the shadows below; Summer was ending.

The path she followed ended in a thick mass of brambles, any further access completely swallowed in its maw of thorned stems and sharp branches. It was an expansive, seemingly overnourished wall of plantlife, bearing similarity of some ill-willed elemental by its sheer expansive size, even throwing a shadow on the tall Eneduanna.

She grimaced and pushed the brambles aside to continue.

Eneduanna’s olive skin was scratched bloody and her fine scarlet robe was torn and ripped. The brambles covered her like a shadowy ceiling, snaking green stalks curling up against her wrists and ankles, trying their best to painfully ensnare her.

Eneduanna emerged on the other side, long brown hair tangled, face solemn.

Here, hidden in the heart of the inner-city, the sacred ground of the revered one, the gardens of the Godess, were graves.

Four of them, marked with mossy stones, surrounded by a green circle of near-impenetrable high-reaching brambles and roses.

She sat down besides the overgrown graves and remembered. A single tear traveled across her cheekbone as Eneduanna closed her eyes to mourn. This little tragic circle was her secret.

She had even thought of names; Names for her children. But their tiny, pale and malformed bodies had been fed to the earth, alongside their begetters. No life in their little limbs, no first breath in their unused lungs. Incompleted children rejected by her own womb. Stillborn after stillborn, until she thought herself unable for fertility. She placed her slender hands over her lower body, eyes closed.

She told herself that there were more important things in this world - this one and the next, but the assurances grew weaker every time they were repeated in this garden of the dead.

She would be a barren Godess then, destined to be alone until she grew old and weak. She began crying, the sobbing immediately recognized as weakness and halted. Eneduanna breathed in deeply and straightened her back. Her hand she moved from grave to grave to feel the earth. But there was only cold dirt between her fingers.

Her progeny was wormwood. Could she even hope? Better to abandon, the voice within assured, but her mind wandered. Hope was strong and comforting; deluding.

She was not done with hope yet, she endured the painful longing, embracing it with desperation. The hope brought no joy, only sadness.

But the tears had dried up and she was able to continue again.

Her face a rigid fearsome mask that forced cities to bow. She left the circle of graves.

A man awaited her before the doors of her domed temple-house.

Grey eyes, sadder than usual. Clothes covered in the dust of travels.

With the echoes of mourning still fading within her heart she moved to command her Hurrian.

‘What of Isin?’ She asked.

The Hurrian bowed his head. ‘I have delivered your demands to the gates of the Kingdom. King Kalbi, old lord of Isin came to listen. He gives these words back to you, Revered one:’

‘I, Kalbi, Royal master of Isin, keeper of bees and dogs, will allow the Idol of your High-Priestess into my city, - if she pays for its stay. Eneduanna’s weight in gold and the gates open.’

Eneduanna’s brows lowered. ‘He wants to be bought with gold? Prostituted. Bribed. Fattened and honeyed, bathed in milk and roses.’ She shook his head. ‘That is not devotion. He knows what was the fate of Larsa?’

‘Yes.’ Sjerub replied softly.

‘Then have you made clear to him that he, in time, will receive the same choice as Larsa?’ Mercy, Cruelty.

‘I did.’ Sjerub whispered, his eyes downcast. ‘I tried reasoning, when that failed I demanded a duel. The King refused. I had no option but to return. Please forgive me, Revered one.’

‘The fool!’ The tall High Priestess exclaimed. She inspected the travel-worn envoy at her feet. Sjerub of Aratta, the tormented Hurrian Prince. She shook her head. Hope is for the weak.

‘You have failed me...’ She said softly. ‘Again. I had hopes for you, Hurrian, but it seems I was bitterly mistaken.’

‘My Mistress…’

‘Sisters!’ Eneduanna screeched, stepping away from the Hurrian.

Scarlet women surged from the gardens around them, spears and bows ready.

‘-Jail this man. Put him somewhere deep. He may overthink the severity of his sins in the darkness.’

As the Hurrian was bound and led away the stocky figure of Amalda appeared in the temple’s doorway.

‘Its a mistake to trust men.’ The matron said soothingly. ‘Know that we will never fail you, Revered one. We have prepared the ritual. Are you certain you are ready to partake?’

Eneduanna sighed, forcing any lingering thoughts about the Hurrian from her mind.

‘I am tired of triumphs of the mud. Grant me the light of Inanna’s eyes.’

Matron Amalda bowed her head, and at her back the priestess council appeared. Old white haired crones and wrinkled matrons, all dressed in the scarlet dress of their order.

The eldest of them all, Eneduanna’s first handmaiden, shuffled forward. She had been a beautiful woman when she had aided Eneduanna’s birth, now she was a yellowed sack of brittle bones, eyes blind, her weak hand resting heavily on a cane.

‘Come then, beautiful mistress.’ The handmaiden whispered. ‘The broth of the ritual is ready. Bring your lips to the cauldron and a time of purging will commence. You will feel madness, sickness, and pain, and your body will be brought to the brink of death. Then, Godess willing, Inanna will guide your soul.’

The handmaid's trembling hand reached up and Eneduanna bent down so the old lady could touch her face. ‘I love you so much Eneduanna, ever since I held you I knew you were destined for greatness. I am certain you will survive. I however will not. I will lend my last power to your ritual. When you wake I will have passed you back to the other side. Come, most beautiful shining one, let me kiss you a last time…’ Her old lips pouted.