The crowd — now numbering close to two thousand — surged forward, shouting questions at the merchants, demanding to know what had happened. The former leaders of Sumer stared at the angry people confronting them, but said nothing.
“They’ve been ordered not to speak,” Tammuz said.
“Queen Kushanna had better arrive soon,” En-hedu whispered. “The people are getting angry. There aren’t enough soldiers here to control this many.”
They both sensed the rising tension. No one enjoyed standing around in the hot sun, which added to the crowd’s anger. The smell from so many bodies filled the still air. The incensed mutterings grew louder and angrier. The soldiers glanced at each other and fingered their weapons.
“Where is our army?” An old man shouted the question with a quavering voice. “What happened to my sons?”
Everyone joined in, and soon the crowd began to shift and move under the pressure of so many struggling to make themselves heard.
“This could get out of hand,” Tammuz said. “Stay close to me.”
A column of eight soldiers strode down the lane, shoving anyone in their path out of the way. Queen Kushanna walked in their midst, wearing one of her finest gowns, her hair combed and arrayed. She wore a necklace of pearls, gold rings on her fingers and bracelets on her arms. Her escort started for the top of the market, but she halted them. Too many people blocked the way. “Stop here. I’ll speak to them from here.”
Kushanna ignored both the people and their cries for answers. A soldier carried over a stool, and helped her step onto it, so Kushanna could be seen and heard. She stared at the crowd, and waited until the din had died down.
“People of Sumer. People of Sumer. Hear me.” Her melodious voice quieted the crowd. “I bring you evil tidings. Our army has been defeated by the Akkadians.”
En-hedu noted the use of just the name, no longer demons or barbarians.
“Our king, my husband, is dead. Now the Akkadian army marches toward Sumer.”
A groan went up from the crowd, along with a few curses.
“To save our city, and protect your lives, I will offer a ransom of gold to King Eskkar when he arrives. These men,” Kushanna lifted her shapely arm to point at the nobles under Jarud’s guard, “will be required to give up their wealth to save the city. With all their gold and possessions, and what little is left of King Shulgi’s goods, we should be able to raise at least a thousand gold coins.”
A cheer burst forth at the nobles’ discomfort. “Let the bastards pay!” Others grew angry, as they grasped the size of the merchants’ wealth, flaunted at them while they went hungry.
Kushanna raised her arm again to quiet the now angry mob. “To ensure that Sumer and your safety is protected, I will also offer myself to King Eskkar, begging him to spare our city. I will kneel before him and throw myself at his mercy. King Eskkar has shown forgiveness in the past. Now I will sacrifice myself to save your lives, and to save our city. And I will present him with the gift of the brother of Lady Trella, who we rescued from the mines.”
Cheers greeted the news, the first bit of hope they’d been offered.
En-hedu exchanged a brief glance with Tammuz. Neither of them had ever heard that Trella had a brother.
Listening to the crowd, En-hedu decided that Kushanna might just manage to do it. She would win over the mob with the sacrifice of the nobles. With more than a little apprehension, En-hedu wondered if Eskkar would fall under Kushanna’s spell. The woman was indeed a witch.
A shrill voice broke through the clamor. “You murdered my sons! I had three sons, and now they’re all dead!”
An old woman with long gray hair hanging limp around her face had pushed her way through the crowd, shoving grown men aside. She flung a stone at Kushanna, only a few paces away, narrowly missing the queen, whose eyes went wide in surprise. No one had ever dared raise a hand toward her.
The woman refused to be silent. “You sent them all to their deaths!” She reached down and scooped up a handful of dirt and threw that as well.
A soldier stepped forward and struck the woman in the face with the haft of his spear, knocking her back into the arms of those behind. Whatever sympathy the crowd had started to give Kushanna vanished in a moment.
“Murderers! She sent our husbands to their deaths!”
The soldiers lowered their spears and pushed the now angry crowd back, while a frowning Queen Kushanna looked on, her lips clenched in anger at the insolence. The throng of people pushed and shoved, moving in all directions, everyone cursing and shouting.
En-hedu realized what could happen. This crowd could be turned. Her elbow jabbed Tammuz in the ribs. “Death to the queen!” She yelled the words with all her strength. “Death to those murderers who led us to war! Death to the queen!”
Tammuz, shocked at his wife’s outburst, took a moment to grasp the situation. Then he, too, joined in. “Death to the queen! Death to those who betrayed us!” In a moment, every voice in the marketplace repeated the same words.
The soldiers, greatly outnumbered, hesitated at the sudden ferocity from the mass of men and women facing them. Most of Sumer’s remaining soldiers guarded the gates and the wall. And Queen Kushanna’s guards were not hardened veterans. Most were either too young or too old to go off to war, and none had ever seen naked anger and hatred such as this.
The crowd saw the doubt and fear on their faces. A wave of people surged forward, as ten, fifty, a hundred voices joined in, all shouting death to Queen Kushanna.
Tammuz pushed his way to the front. “Death to Kushanna!” A soldier tried to hold him back, but Tammuz’s knife lashed out, and the guard staggered back, his nose broken by the weapon’s hilt. A few people in front died, impaled on the spears, but the screaming mob now could not be stopped. “Death to Kushanna!” The words came from every voice, and this time the cry didn’t stop.
Chaos erupted. The people of Sumer had been demeaned and crushed down for many years, and now they saw a chance for their revenge. The soldiers grasped the situation, too. Many shrank aside, others dropped their spears. Some turned toward the queen, as eager to strike as any of the mob. The nobles, released by the captors, added their voices to the din.
Jarud saw the danger. He abandoned the nobles and closed up his men around the queen, shouting at his soldiers to keep together. Enough heeded his words. In moments, they formed a protective ring around Kushanna. They struggled and shoved their way through the clawing mob, moving toward the lane that had brought Kushanna into the marketplace. A few more steps and…
En-hedu saw Kushanna slipping away. She ducked low, practically slithering between the legs of the crowd shrieking hatred and venom above her. Then she saw the legs of the soldiers forcing their way forward, then the hem of Kushanna’s gown. Rising up, En-hedu’s long arm stretched out. She meant to strike at Kushanna’s heart, but an unheeding arm knocked the blade down, and instead the weapon sank to the hilt just above the queen’s hip, before it was wrenched from En-hedu’s hand by the forward momentum of the guards. Kushanna’s scream could scarcely be heard in all the confusion. Because the stroke landed so low, none of the soldiers realized what had happened.
Only one man saw En-hedu strike — Jarud.
Her knife gone, En-hedu moved back, trying to return to Tammuz’s side. A dozen paces away, her husband pushed and shoved against the nearly unmovable mass of people to reach her. She looked back, and saw Jarud knocking people aside, determined to get his hands on her. En-hedu struggled as hard as she could, trying to move away from Jarud. But the Captain of the Guard was bigger and stronger, and the crowd gave way before him as he forced his way closer.
Looking up, she saw the nobles fighting the angry crowd for their own lives. Stones and clods of dirt flew through the air. Gemama had both arms raised, trying to protect his head from the people’s wrath. The sight gave En-hedu another idea.
“Gemama for king! Gemama for king!” She snapped her gaze at Tammuz. The soldiers escorting Kushanna had pushed their way clear, dragging the faltering queen with them. Jarud had moved almost within arm’s length.
