Miszatu

The guards led Miszatu up the street towards the town's central hill. To her surprise they were not bound for anywhere near the great temple, but continued north. Miszatu supposed her crime was far too severe to be punished by anything but the king's judgment, yet, a moment later, it became clear they were not heading to the palace either. The guards instead brought her to the prince's palace. Miszatu knew that Nawirnushu had no sons and had not chosen an heir, and she wondered what the estate was being used for.

Her escorts led her through the courtyard where workmen toiled on building renovations. Directly through the courtyard they crossed into the long, darkened hallway of the smaller palace's audience room, though now it was deprived of throne and decoration. The guards shuffled Miszatu into a smaller office on the side and closed the door behind her.

The room was populated by shelves covered with dusty stacks of tablets and wooden desks strewn with purification materials and reference models for the practice of the barutu arts. At the far end of the room sat a slender man with beady little eyes and light patches of greying in his hair.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

Miszatu had seen him before during her services for the royal family, and the accoutrements of his office made it easy to make an educated guess. "You are Asqudum. The king's baru."

"And you are Miszatu sha Nanshe. Sit down." he motioned for Miszatu to perch herself in a small wooden chair before his work table and she obliged. She focused on stiffening her posture and calming her anxiety. Her brow was heavy with sweat. In her heart she ached for the help of her personal god.

Asqudum paused to reflect upon her. Then he spoke.

"What, exactly, do you do as a naditu? What are your duties?" He asked.

"T-to pray to Lady Nanshe and ensure her goodwill on behalf of the king and the people of the land. To offer her goodwill freely to the poor and abandoned through charity and community services. To raise money for temple services."

"But what of your ritual duties?"

Miszatu could hardly stop from shaking. "W-we bless holy water and purify ritual participants, we make sacrificial offerings to the lady, we utter liturgy, we provide basic medical care and participate in lamentation services, we interpret dreams and omens for our..."

"Then you know why I called you in here?"

Tears streamed from her eyes. "...Yes. I.. I just.."

"Tell me more about your divining skills."

Miszatu was confused. She didn't understand what she was being asked, but she obliged. "...I am an initiated hayyadu, a riddler. I have studied the mysteries of the signs of the gods and the methods by which they are read. I attended the House of Tablets for many years... but I would never suggest of course, that the place of a hayyadu is anywhere as qualified as an ummanu of the barutu arts"

Asqudum sat back in his chair. He seemed to appreciate Miszatu polite deferral. "Well, I was ordained in far off Subartu through the grand temple and the House of Tablets at Ninuwa, but you came to the barutu arts through different means. By what initiation were you ordained into these abilities, if you may speak of it?"

"My oath with my lady forbids me from going into specifics, but there was an incubation ritual of death and rebirth which was carried out in the E-Sirara chapel before the goddess. That was three years ago."

"It musn't have been too hard to die and be reborn when you can never carry life in the first place!"

Miszatu didn't answer. Something about that 'joke' churned her stomach.

"And you're a woman who takes her oaths very seriously, right Miszatu?" He seemed to chide.

She did not respond.

Asqudum chuckled to himself, somewhat frustrated by her reservedness."So walk me through a riddle. Show me how you read them." He demanded.

"Um, I'm sorry, you want me to...?"

Asqudum stroked his beard. "Here, let me give you an omen. I want to hear your interpretation based on it:

Let's say that a man has a dream where he is eating bird. That bird is a crow. What does this mean?"

Miszatu sunk her head and averted her eyes as she reasoned through the problem. "...Well, depending on the other circumstances of the dream, consuming a crow would imply either an acquisition or a loss of wealth, because the word "arbu", crow implies the condition of "irbu", income..."

"Well, then what if another man had a dream where he saw a shooting star fall out of the sky?"

"That's obvious. To see a shooting star, a kiszru sha Anu, is a sign of either growing or diminishing strength. If the trail of the meterorite illuminates the whole sky, then it probably means the dreamer will gain strength in waking life, but if the the shooting star dashes from Anu like rocks cast on the water's head, then it announces a loss of strength. Because the word for shooting star, kiszru sha Anu, automatically implies the condition of kiszru, strength.

"Excellent, and what if a man dreams that he is out in the wilderness, hunting animals, and he manages to ensnare a fox in his hands?"

"Oo, that's a tricky one. Well if a man seizes a fox in a dream then, because, although shelibu, the fox, is usually spelled KA.A5 as is the old convention, if it is spelled out syllabically as she7-lib-bu, it can also be read as the old convention (A.)AN.KAL.-u for 'lamassu'. So this implies that if a man catches a fox in a dream he will also acquire a protective spirit in life, but if he catches and then loses the fox in the dream, he will gain and then lose this protective spirit."

Miszatu's tears stopped. Her anxiety ceased for a moment. "Why are you so curious in my skills as a hayyadu?" She asked.