Beloved by the Moon
The three rode on before her, and she lagged behind. The air was hot and dry, and she was in the dream. The stars had shown her it was near the time...she would need to move on again before Akkasur found her again, but there was unfinished business. She could feel it, almost taste it on the winds. A sudden breeze had picked up, brushing her hair from her face, and she thought...she pulled up short. It was only a dove in the sky. It was not a voice, merely a bird.
"Look! Anath-Sin, come and see!" Ninsug cried.
They had found a basket among the reeds. Anath-Sin's heart froze. This could not be what she thought.
"A child!" Ninsug continued. "Wonderful things abound!"
She dismounted, and approached, marveling. The other women cooed and made much of the child's eyes, which looked as if they were made of the same fabric as the sky, and lusty cries.
"A strong one...how came he here?"
Anath-Sin said nothing, only reached out to hold the child. In her arms, his crying ceased, and he looked up at her.
"Yes, beautiful one, you are a favored child, that we found you..." she whispered. The other women reached out their hands, hoping to touch the child, but Anath-Sin held him tight. They paused, but did not wonder. In her years among them, she had known many a man as an ennitum, and she had never borne. It was thought she could not.
"Shall he be known as 'Naram-Sin'?"
She wandered in thought. Was this something she read in the stars? Was this the thing she could not see clearly?
"He shall be known as many things. He shall make a name for himself," she said, finally.
The other women could not feel what she did, for they were common women. They did not know that even now, his little soul called out to her, for they were the same kind.
She unlaced her garment, and nestled him close to her bosom. The women helped her fasten him tight to herself, and she remounted the ass. "He must be brought back to Nippur...he must be famished."
As the ass trotted back, she looked down at the baby, who almost seemed to smile.
She laughed to herself."Good that you like to ride, little one. You will have plenty of that in your future."
*****
From a half-mile away, he could tell that it was she...in the land of the black-headed people, she had hair like a flame, and she let it flow free down her back and fly about in the breeze. She rode as men ride, but then, she did many things like a man. He lowered himself to sit on the temple steps, and looked in silence as she approached him.
"Seker..." she began, smiling wickedly. "Lord of the Unquenchable Appetite...drinker from my wine-flask, visitor of the odd hour..."
Teasing him gave her especial pleasure. He might cut the throat of any man and take the head of any Immortal he ran across, but he tolerated her ribbing out of respect for her years and numerous favors she had done him.
They understood one another.
"Can you not merely call me 'Methos'?" He asked, tiring of her joke at his expense. And then he noticed the thing she had tied in her robe. "What have you there?"
She had been reaching to undo the tie...but paused. Bemused, she gave him a very innocent look.
"It is a baby. People start out that way."
His face grew stern. "Must everything be a joke with you?"
"When you are my age, you will find humor in everything, mark my words." With that, she walked past him and entered the temple, and he followed.
*****
The old women flocked to her.
"What is this? What have you done, now, Anath-Sin?" they asked. What this woman would not bring into the temple. Over the years, she had entered bearing a fox cub, a wounded bird, and now she came bearing a child.
"I have lain by the side of a demon and got myself with a demon-child," she said mischievously, and shot a wicked look at Methos, who looked away. "By the Holy! We found him by the Euphrates...he fusses so you would think it had been the Tigris...see how he squirms! The little snake!" She handed him off to one out-reaching crone, and gazed after him as the women clucked and cooed, and offered suggestions about what must be done next...who had recently delivered of a child and might nurse...where could such a child have come from.
Methos drew Anath-Sin aside.
"You know what he is. What he will be."
"Then who better to bring him up than myself!"
Methos shook his head. "Akkasur is not far. He still hungers after your head. You know there is only one way for this to end."
Her hands flew to her face, and she sighed, collecting her thoughts. She was a woman who felt. When she thought, it only wearied her.
"First he kills my sweet old man, and now he will not be content until he has bested me. I hate no thing on this earth as I hate him." Her hands dropped to her sides, and she stood, the pain on her face apparent.
"You could end it in the usual way."
The advice was typical of Methos. If there was a problem, the answer was to call it out and kill it. Bloodthirsty, vicious-minded, and deceitful to the last...she hoped he would never change...but then, she had.
"I grew tired of the killing. It all grows old. Some people believe this Game has an end...but I see no end, only more killing." She smiled at him. "I would rather have love."
He reached and wrapped a tendril of her hair about his fingers. It looked as if dyed by blood. He remember how she was...
"Love you call it..."
"Call it what you will."
*****
Their lips met, and then, she felt the touch of his hand caressing her hindquarters, and then she knew she would have to bring him into her chamber. She could never resist Methos, no matter how she might try to content herself with the usual arguments; he was a liar, he was a libertine, and he was...just like herself, as a matter of fact.
And in her chamber, after she had lit myrrh incense and a few candles, they began to make love, and she reveled in his body, so young and lean, when many of the men she had were not so well-proportioned. He was in all things, beautiful, and she could adore him without feeling anything more abiding than the merest friendship they enjoyed.
And he enjoyed her as well, fathoming the depths of her experience, and her wisdom, yet still appreciating what she was, a gifted piece of ass. Her body was so white, her breasts so round and firm and so her stomach...lucky was she to die as she did, young enough to be forever beautiful.
He spoke to her, playfully. "Were you not a whore..."
And she answered, "My chiefest assets would be a-wasting...shut up and love me, Methos..." She knew how that line went. She would rather not think about how she once thought of letting herself become his wife. Of course, that was another time. Both of them were wiser, now. And she had never needed a man quite that badly.
They continued then, until Methos heard her cries of passion, and felt his own release. They lay together and this was a thing that always pleased Anath-Sin. He would lie with her afterwards, and let her hold him close. Sometimes she thought this was a thing she liked more than the act itself.
*****
"So you would raise him among these women, and make a eunuch of him?" Methos asked.
"And so, my Lord Methos, did you feel you were a eunuch when you lived as a prince, with a harem of women about you?" She smiled, pointing out a certain exploit of his. His women had eventually proved too much for him-she could have told him they would.
He colored, but then continued, trying to prove his point.
"No, but then, I was their master...and how shall he fare being fatherless?"
"You have been fatherless, and it has dishonored you not," Anath-Sin answered, gauging his reaction most carefully. "I may be both father and mother to this child, may I not? Who knows more than I?"
Methos shook his head. He knew even now better than to argue with a determined woman. "Perhaps such as yourself... perhaps even you, Anath-Sin."
She smiled to herself. She valued the counsel of this young one, feeling he was such as would live long on this Earth...but she could be wrong. She was taken with him at the moment, and there was nothing so stirring to her as being taken by a man.
"If I had need of a man? If I had need of a man to teach him?"
But at this, Methos shook his head. And Anath-Sin despaired. If there were any she would have as the teacher of her "son", it would be Methos. Who better to teach him the ways of blood-lusting men...and hard-loving men and the ways of men who could think, and yet act? She despaired, because, of all things, she trusted him, in her own, reserved way. Even loved him.
*****
But even she knew love was not enough. Had love been enough to keep Akkasur from murdering Uta-nammu even though he was a weak old man? He went to protect her; she had erred. She never told him what she was-that she was a snake, and shed her skin, and stayed forever young. He lived watching himself fail, and herself thrive, and never spoke a word. And he went to his death-how could she believe it was not at her hands? That it was as much her own responsibility as anyone else's? And she knew what Methos was-better she not try to love him. He was too free. He was as the wind.
But then there was this child. Maybe she could hope for some kind of mainstay in her life, when all else failed. Could she not raise this boy, and have something she could call her own?
Eventually, Methos spoke, and it was a question she dreaded, but knew she should answer truthfully. Methos was a natural liar, and thus was expert at discerning lies.
"Why would you wish to do this thing, when Akkasur dogs your tail? And why does this man dog your tail? Why is he after you, after you even through these many years?"
She fixed him in her eye; lapis set in bleached chalcedony. "He was one of my students," she began. She did not intend to tell him the full truth of this tale-only so much as might make the point known.
"I did not care for him, but he had a use for me. And so, one day, he wished to show me of his desire. He, with force, tried to shame me with cruel words and take me against my will. It was nothing that had never happened to me before, but I was enraged.
"Had I not come into this world some centuries before? Had I not known glory in battle? Was my arm weak? No, it would not be before him-he was nothing. So I subdued him with my strength, and bid the guard come in."
And here she paused as Methos lie on her bed, and her eye gleamed most evilly. "He was then...had you spoke of eunuchs? Well, then, he was made a eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven. And so he is, even now, for all his Immortal life."
Methos gasped, and stared. He had heard nothing like this before. He knew she had once been cruel, and then he saw how she smiled at this statement.
"And so you speak of such things before one who has just shared your bed?"
"Methos, I would speak with you about anything."
In a state of unquiet he sat. What would this Anath-Sin not speak of? Had she not taught him of Uta-napishtim, and the jewel of Methuselah, and of Imhotep, her own teacher? He knew more of the old ones because of her...was that not why he wanted to be free of her? For she was old, and she would try to rule him? She might speak of love, but he knew what she was.
She was a lion and a devourer-a human flame that burned everything.
He wondered what she might do with a child.
*****
She could feel his thoughts, as she always could. He thought the worst of her; it was ever thus. He knew what she was. And they were so recently in each other arms, and it was always this way between them. They fought, they loved, and they fought again.
So she changed the subject.
"My lord, do you intend to tarry, or do you ride?"
He looked at her long. How many nights might a man lie in these arms before he suffered a fate worse than that of Akkasur? Was she not the woman who made him...who taught him to turn the rivers red with blood, and did she not wear bones on her girdle when first he saw her flame-headed form moving through the world like a storm? If he stayed, she would eat him alive.
"I mean to go at once, I came only to tell you of Akkasur's approach, and to know you."
At this, her eyes became as clay. She was unreadable, like the stelae of the time before the Flood, in a language known but to a few. And then he felt it coming-her rage, as she was always wrathful beneath the surface. The light gathered, and the thunder. She spoke--
"Methos, I would have you never change."
And he knew from her voice she was charging him to a fate, and he despaired, for he knew of her ways. There were times when he wondered if she did not have a power-for when she cursed, a thing might come to pass.
So he hoped to turn her heart again towards him, and made his voice sweet. "I will stay this one night, and no more. I must ride. Why will you not ride with me?" For he remembered this was her element. She would never resist this temptation in all the time he knew her. She was a reaver, and a destroyer. She knew cities as she knew men, and drove either to their destruction.
But her face was downcast, and she chose her words so that he lost not his faith in her.
"I no longer ride. Uta-nammu...made me human again. Made me feel as a woman, not a destroyer. And I will not kill. I have given up that way--it pleases me no more. I will not be by your side, Methos."
He did not know this woman. She spoke as a coward. She spoke as a mere woman. What was she?
"I can love you, but I can not be as you are," she said finally.
He had no use for her. He would go.
*****
He would go, but not before knowing her again.
Was this not the way between them, ever? That one wanted blood, and the other peace? And this time it was herself who wanted peace, and he could live for a moment as if he was not himself a war-like man. But in his mind, he was thinking of returning to the mountain, to be among the Goutis, and to plan another raid. And she thought of the future, and of the child, and what she might bring to pass. And they loved each other, absently, but there was no flash, no heat. It was only their two bodies moving against one another. They made the most of it, but each knew the other too well. Their loving was no more.
"Lord Seker...Methos...could you not give me one promise?" she breathed, and her eyes were as they ever were...even as a language of the men before the flood.
"Anna..." he called her, as she would sometimes be called. "What would you have?"
"Could you swear to me you would return? That if I had need of you...you would come? If I sent a messenger, if you heard my voice as if in a dream...if you thought of me, would you come?"
"I make no promises, Lady," he answered, for once truthfully.
"But you would."
"I always would." But his voice was doubtful. "But I...why is it like this? You demand too much of me!"
She lay her head back. It seemed so simple to ask that a man would return to her. It seemed simple to her that two people could rely on each other and that they not let go. But he was only Methos, and he did not have the fire. She let this pass.
"Would you make me another promise?"
He would not speak, or turn his eyes, such golden eyes, in her direction.
"I mean to raise this child, and if you would not teach him, would you spare him? In all things, came he across your path, I would you do not kill him."
"This," he answered, relieved, for what was this child to him? A mere babe-in-arms, to be raised by a whore! "This I would swear. I will not kill your boy. His head is for another."
And she relaxed, and lay against him, again happy. In her mind, this was as good as done; it only remained for her to convince him further. Why should he not return to her? Why would he not love what she loved?
But in the morning, he had left, and there was no trace of where he might have gone. And she called for her women to bring her the child, and she clutched him tight. In the entire world, this was what she had-her head, her women, her child. All the same, she did not feel afraid. She only needed to think.
*****
She held him, rocked him, and wondered. She had held mortal children in her arms and been half-afraid, but here there was no fear. It was as if she could sense even now that he would be strong, even for their kind. He might live as long even as herself. But she stayed deep in thought as to what would transpire, after all, he could not be as those poor fatherless ones, who were taken by the houses of others, and never saw their mothers, their sires. The life of a slave was not for any child of hers. She must find him a home.
The bastards of temple hetaerae were known to be mad...half the children of the God...half the children of the basest of men. And they knew what their mothers were, so why should they not despair?
But Anath-Sin had known no shame since she slew her first man in a long-ago plain, where the Taurians drew their swords against man and child, and graves were dug for the brave-for the very brave! Why should she not carry this child forth, as being her own? Why should she not scheme, even such as she?
And so when she heard the trump sounding, and the march of feet, and the sound of women speaking, and knew it was Prince Manishtusu. She gathered close her women.
"Has the Prince known of me lo these many days?"
"Nay, lady," they answered. A year had passed, since she lay in his arms. "He knew not your state, or your condition." They smiled as they answered this, knowingly, for her favors were most often called for. It was said she knew of places on a man others knew not of--to which she might do things others would not do. And none for one moment doubted it of her, nor did they doubt what she would propose--for all her cheek.
"Good ladies, could he not be a father?" she asked, and knew they would join the intrigue.
What father would not want such a son?
*****
Prince Manishtusu looked into the appealing eyes of Anath-Sin, and appreciated how very badly this woman always lied. These fields had been plowed many a time, and did not bear fruit-what man didn't know that? And even if this was not well known-hips never had a child pass through them, and that waist had never swollen like the moon. He wondered just which one of her girls she was protecting. But he pretended to believe, for it was as his father, Sharrukkin, had told him: some women's lies are better than the truth. And it was even so with this one's lies.
The child was obviously his. After all, his visits to this temple were most frequent some time back and, he imagined, justly productive. He would let the child bide here for a time, until it was weaned, and then, he would allow it into his home in Agade, and out of the hands of these scheming women.
Looking into the eyes of Prince Manishtusu, Anath-Sin was well pleased. Perhaps he did not believe her completely, but even believing only part would get the child accepted. Was it not a lucky thing that men believe what pleases them best!
He would be accepted into the House of Agade. He would be accepted as the grandson of Sharrukkin himself-what king was greater! And perhaps Naram-Sin would become a king, himself! She wondered at the thought.
Familiar with the ways of men, it was a shame, then, that Anath-Sin was not more familiar with the ways of kings.