Hero Historia: Aea Watched 2
Aea Watched is the second chapter of the historical superhero web serial Hero Historia, set in ancient Sumer.
At twelve Aea was the youngest of the girls, though her neighbor Shiptu was less than a year older. Ninlil looked to be perhaps sixteen, though the scar running down her face made it difficult to guess. The other women Aea did not know, and some were older than Ninlil, the scarred woman looked most at ease.
After the guards had taken her younger brother and the other men and boys away, Aea had slunk to the ground near the gate, spending half her time watching the outside and half watching her fellow prisoners. The guards – tough bald men in sheepskin skirts carrying whips and short staves – had disappeared into another hut across the stretch of dry earth. They had not emerged, perhaps waiting out the harsh noonday sun with the male slaves.
Beyond the men’s hut, in the distance, Aea could see the walls of the mighty city Lagash, closer than it had been to their village, but still most of a day’s travel away.
Her childhood friend Shiptu sat against the wall a short length away. A pair of women closer to her mother’s age were sitting in one corner, heads bowed, resting. Ninlil stood in the opposite corner, head against the mud wall, fingernails idly picking at the cracks between the bricks. At first Aea hoped that the scarred girl was trying to escape, but it quickly became clear that she was just bored.
“What is to become of us?” Shiptu asked, breaking the silence.
Aea crawled over to her friend. “I don’t know. Maybe they will take us to sell in Lagash?”
The scarred girl turned to lean back against the wall, watching the newcomers with a level gaze. “This is an outpost slave market. They’ll sell us here, because they can avoid paying Lagash its taxes.”
“Is that allowed?” Aea asked.
“No,” Ninlil said, “but Lagash won’t bother sending soldiers out this far to stop them. Everyone would be gone by the time they arrived.”
“Oh,” Aea said. “I wish our village could avoid taxes that way.”
“Sold by your families into debt-slavery?” Ninlil asked.
“Yes.”
The scarred woman nodded. “It’s happening more often now that Lagash has raised taxes so high.”
“Don’t they realize what’s happening?” Shiptu asked.
One of the other women, a thin woman with a hook-shaped nose, snorted. “Do you think they care? They have to pay for their wars somehow, and it is the poor that suffer.”
“Always the poor,” her friend, still thin but with a broad face, added.
“What is going to happen now?” Aea asked.
“Men will come to the market,” Hook-Nose said. “And they will buy us.”
“But Father can buy me back, yes?” Aea held on to her one hope.
Broad-face laughed and unpleasant cackle. “If the taxes go down, sure. If he wants to bother. If he can find the slaver. If the slaver kept all the right records.”
Aea felt her hope flicker. “My father loves me. This is… this is just for now.”
“Oh, sure,” Broad-Face said. “That is what my husband told me. Three years ago.”
“You’ve been a slave for three years?” Aea was dismayed.
“Three, yes Urnina?”
Hook-nose nodded. “Three, give or take a month.”
“Then why are you being sold again?” Shiptu asked.
“Can’t you tell?” Ninlil asked. “Such a spiteful bitch, no wonder her husband couldn’t stand her.”
Broad-face struggled to her feet. “Oh, and I suppose you’re just too ugly to look at, Scarface? Maybe you’d be more attractive if I gave you a matching trench on the other side?”
Urnina stood and grabbed at her friend. “Settle, or the guards–”
“No, let her come.” Ninlil balled her fists. “The guards won’t hear. I’ll have plenty of time to take you apart.”
“She’s not worth it, Mammetum,” Unrina said. “Her face is ruined, so she has nothing to lose, but you…”
Broad-face relaxed and sat down again. “You’re right. She’s not worth it.”
“Im sorry,” Aea said after a few tense moments, her face burning hot. “It was rude of me to ask.”
“There’s no harm.” Mammetum’s face was still flushed, but she did a good job of looking unflustred. “To answer your question, we’re bought and sold, depending on the whim of our owners. That’s what makes it unlikely you’ll ever be bought back.”
“Maybe your husband is looking for you?” Shiptu said. “And just cannot find you?”
Mammetum and Urnina looked at each other for a moment before breaking up into laughter.
“No, child, no,” Mammetum managed. “That drunk has probably forgotten he has a wife and remaried. No.”
“We were bought together last time,” Urina said. “A quick trip into concubinage and then back onto the market.”
“Cheaper than a whore for the same timespan,” Mammetum said.
Aea felt the blood drain from her face. “That happens?”
“Oh, sure!” Mammetum crawled closer, followed by Urnina. “Men by slaves for all sorts of reasons. Labor. Sex. Boredom. Chattal. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and be purchased for an easy domestic service, cleaning house for wealthy nobles who barely know you’re alive.”
Urnina peered at her. “But you’re a pretty girl. Very classic features… there are laws that protect even slaves, little one, but give it a few years… you’ll grow up into a beautiful woman.”
Aea felt faint.
Ninlil walked over towards her, and the two older women edged away. “No, it’s good. Your price will be high. Rich families buy pretty girls like you as servants, because it makes their homes more beautiful.”
Mammetum glared. “And ruined-faced bitches like this are bought for back-breaking field-work.”
“The only back that’s going to be broken is yours if you don’t watch your tongue, you witch.”
“The men are coming,” Shiptu called from the doorway. “The guards, I mean.”
Ninlil stared daggers at the other women as they retreated to their corner.
***
After the guards provided a light meal of chickpea-onion soup the women were led out of their huts into the hot but no longer dangerous sun and made to stand on wooden platforms.
One older man, in a more expensive looking linen skirt, made his way up and down the line of slaves, moving them from one spot to another, adjusting clothing.
“Remember to smile,” he said. “You want to be bought by a nice man, don’t you?”
He stopped at Ninlil, turned her face one way or another, tried to brush her hair over her scar, then sighed and moved her alongside Aea before rushing off down the line.
“Don’t worry,” Ninlil whispered. “It’s not as bad as those hags were saying.”
Aea whimpered.
She felt Ninlil’s fingers brush hers, and grabbed the older girl’s hand tightly. The soup felt like acid in her stomach, and her heart was beating so fast she was sure it would burst out of her chest if she didn’t scream soon.
The older man brought Bavi down alongside her. “This is your brother, yes?”
Aea opened her mouth, but couldn’t find words.
“Quickly. yes?”
Ninlil spoke as the older man started to move along. “They were brought in together.”
“Okay, good.” He put Bavi on her other side, then rushed Urnina off down the platforms.
“They keep family together when they can,” Ninlil said.
“Why?” Aea was unable to imagine why these horrible people would care.
Ninlil seemed to understand what she meant. “It makes us easier to control, if we have someone we care about.”
“Do you have anyone?”
Ninlil stared straight ahead. “I try not to.”
“What if.” Aea looked pleadingly at the other girl. “What if someone cruel or bad or something wants to buy us? What if they just want to murder someone?”
“Murdering a slave isn’t legal,” Ninlil said.
Off in the distance, Aea could see groups of men, scattered and together, heading in their direction. She tried to smile as the old man had instructed them to, but it felt forced and phony on her face.
“Okay.” Ninlil looked up and down the row to make sure no guards were near. “Okay, listen. Trust your instincts. If you think someone is bad, then make them not want to buy you. Make yourself unappealing.”
“How?”
“Just… I don’t know. Scrunch up your face. Be argumentative. Act stupid, like one of those older bitches, nobody wants them. Just don’t make it obvious, or the guards will beat you.”
“Okay.” Aea gave the older girl’s hand a squeeze. “Thank you, Ninlil.”
Ninlil didn’t turn to her, but she did squeeze back.
Aea looked down at Bavi. “Everything is going to be okay. They won’t separate us.”
Her little brother looked up, shoulders shaking. “Promise?”
“Eyes front!” A guard snapped at her. She riveted her attention on the approaching groups of men, and gave her little brother’s hand a squeeze.
For him, she could be brave.
***
The men came, singly, in pairs, in larger groups. Some of them looked kind, some cruel, but most were indifferent, examining her and her brother like farmers looking to buy new sheep. One went so far as to have the guard lift her upper lip so he could examine her teeth. The guard’s fingertips were rough and salty.
Others had her step forward and raise an arm or turn. One man asked if she could sing.
She could not.
All of them gave her a bad feeling, so she tried to follow Ninlil’s advice, making faces at them until a guard came over and yelled at her to stop.
As the day wore on several of the others were sold, some of the men, along with Urnina and Mammetum. From what Aea could see, the two older women had done the opposite of Ninlil’s advice, smiling broadly and even going so far as to bunch their breasts up towards the men coming to look at them. As dusk grew nearer, Aea began to hope that she wouldn’t be sold, that the price was too high, that they’d just take her and Bavi home.
Towards evening the guards started rushing around and the old man did another run down the line, stopping to run a brush through her hair. She risked a questioning glance towards Ninlil, and saw the girl watching the horizon.
She followed her gaze and saw a group of men carrying some kind of covered platform in the distance.
“Priests,” Ninlil said.
“Is that good or bad?”
Ninlil didn’t respond right away. “Priests have enough money to buy what they want no matter how expensive. They buy you for the gods.”
Aea’s eyes widened. “What do the gods want with us?”
“I don’t know. Servants? Sacrifices? Lagash’s god is Ninurta, the god of war. I don’t want to find out what he might want with a slave.”
Aea didn’t either.
***
After the priests arrived, the process changed. They didn’t come up and down the line, looking into eyes, checking gums, asking for songs. No.
A guard walked up to Aea. “Come.”
She glanced at Ninlil, whose gaze was fixed steadily ahead, then descended her platform to follow him.
He brought her to a tent that the priest’s servants had set up. The servants stood outside it passively, and Aea wondered if they were other slaves, if they were treated well, if she was being bought to carry priests through the desert.
One of the servants – tall, muscular, bald, and nearly hairless – held the tent flap open for her. She ducked inside.
She found herself alone with a tall and angular-faced man with a severe demeanor, seated on the floor, dressed in expensive-looking robes.
He gestured towards the cushion opposite him. “Sit.”
She did so.
“What is your name?”
“Aea.”
“Aea. I am Kuwari. Why are you making that face?”
“I… I’m not making a face.”
“Stop it.”
“Yes sir.”
“Better.” His eyes were half-lidded, and she had the impression that he was looking into her, at her soul. “I am going to ask you questions. I will know if you are lying to me, and I will have you beaten. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” None of the others had wanted to speak with her, but this was better than being poked and prodded.
“Good. Now. How is it that you are a slave?”
Her face burned. “My father did not have enough for taxes–”
“Mm hm. What were the circumstances of your birth?”
“The… circumstances?”
“Your birth. Was it auspicious? Were you born under a new star? Carried to your parents by a hawk?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Pity.” He pulled out a clay tablet and made a mark on it. “Are your parents related?”
“They’re married.”
“Brother and sister.”
“What? No.”
“Okay.” He made a check. “Have you ever had prophetic dreams?”
“Like dreams that came true?”
He lowered his tablet. “That is what prophetic means, yes.”
“These are very strange questions.”
“And you will answer them or–”
“Or you will have me beaten, yes, I know.”
He tapped the stylus on the edge of his tablet. “You are a willful and indolent girl.”
“I’m sorry.” A bolt of fear struck through her. “Please don’t have me beaten.”
“Answer the questions and I will not.”
“Okay.”
“Prophetic dreams.”
“No, I don’t… wait, I had a dream that I would have a brother, and then my brother Bavi was born the next year.”
Kuwari twiddled his stylus and scrunched up his mouth. “Was the brother in your dream the same as he turned out to be?”
“In as much as he was a baby?”
Kuwari watched her carefully and made a mark on his tablet.
“May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Recording your answers. Can you read?”
She shook her head.
“Never taught?”
“My father is a simple farmer.”
“Girls are never taught.” He turned the tablet to her. “Does this mean anything to you?”
She looked at the marks he’d been making. “No, I told you, I’d never been taught.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“Then no, it just looks like a bird has been walking in clay.”
“What kind of bird?”
“I don’t know. A small one?”
His frown deepend.
It worried Aea. “Was that the wrong answer?”
“There are no wrong answers,” he said. “Only truth and lies.”
“Does it make it more true if you write it down?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. “What?”
“Does writing it down make something more true?”
He stared at her.
She found herself babbling. “It seems like words are heavier, more true, if you write them. You can’t write lies, can you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Have you ever heard the priests read the scripts?”
Aea shook her head. Priests never came to their village.
“I have heard enough.”
Her eyes widened. “I am not lying! Don’t have me beaten.”
He laughed. “I am not going to have you beaten.”
“Did I say the wrong thing?”
“No. You said a very right thing.” He closed his eyed, then began to intone in a slight sing-song. “When the words are written, does that make them any more true? When a lie is written, does it gain more weight?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Where did you hear the words?” Kuwari asked.
“I just made them up, right now. Not those words. The ones I said.”
“The words I spoke are from the scripture of Nanshe, goddess of prophecy and water.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“I have no difficulty having faith in your ignorance, farm girl.”
“Are you going to buy me for Nanshe?”
“I am not a priest of Nanshe.”
“Oh.”
He leaned forward. “I am a priest, but also a teacher, from Nippur.”
“Where is Nippur?”
“Far. Very far. All the way to where the twin rivers empty into the great sea.”
“Is that further than Lagash?”
He chuckled. “Much further. Days. Weeks of travel.”
Her jaw dropped. “You have come so far!”
“Yes. For you.”
“What?”
“This school in Nippur is a special one, for special children.”
“You think I’m special?”
“You might be. You will have to be tested.”
“Tested for what?”
“To see if you are worthy of the goddess.”
“Nanshe?”
“Or any of the others. You see… what was your name?”
“Aea.”
“Aea. The gods as you know live in the cities. But sometimes they return to the heavens. And when they come back, we have to find them again.”
“Are they hard to find?”
“Very. They come back as boys and girls like you. Special. But we can’t tell exactly how, so we priests of this school go out to find the special children, and we bring them back with us. We teach them to be gods.”
Something suddenly occurred to Aea. “You think I might be a goddess?”
“You might be. Or you might not. It’s easier to find the new form the gods take when we keep them close. As I’ve said, there are tests we can give you to make sure.”
“And that’s why you want me?”
Kuwari nodded.
Aea’s head swam. She didn’t know if she could even call this luck, it was so far beyond anything she had expected.
“Wait, what about my brother?”
“I will speak to him, but it is unlikely that he houses a god. They seldom come back to the world together.”
“I don’t want to be apart from him.”
Kuwari’s face grew cold. “I don’t care what you want.”
“But if I’m a goddess–”
“Then you wouldn’t care about one mortal boy out of all the little boys in the world. Even if you were raised with him.”
Aea folded her arms. “Then that proves I am not Nanshe, because I do care.”
Kuwari chuckled. “A good attempt, but it does not work that way. Your true goddess self would not manifest until after the tests, and after the current incarnation of Nanshe had departed.”
“How can there be more than one of me? Her? Nanshe?”
Kuwari shrugged and rose to his feet. “How can the gods perform any of their miracles? They are gods.”
Aea stood and stepped away from him. “I don’t care. I don’t want to go. I won’t leave my brother.”
Kuwari laughed. “You are a slave. If I purchase you, you’ll go where I say.”
“Then don’t!” Aea stepped away towards the tent entrance. “I’m not a goddess. Just a girl. Just leave me and Bavi alone.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” the priest said.
Aea turned and fled from the tent, past the surprised guards and servants, running away from the slave camp, out towards the desert.
***
Aea had succumbed to the desert heat when Kuwari and his entorage found her two days later.
“Is she dead?” the priest asked the litter bearer who had spotted her.
“Not yet,” he responded. “Should we collect her?”
Kuwari weighed his options. “If she survived until we found her, it is probably the gods will that we take her. Put her with me, and bring some water.”
“Bavi,” she muttered. “Bavi.”
“What’s Bavi?” the bearer asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kuwari said. “Her old life is over.”
After she’d been placed into the litter with Kuwari, the bearers turned, and the litter began the long trek through the mud-flats back towards Nippur.
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