The Golden Forest

I was so excited today. Master said that he’d take me to Goddess Inanna’s temple today, you see. “You’re seven now, and you’re probably old enough to handle a donkey’s reins since you’re clever,” he said, but I’ve been able to do something easy like handling a donkey’s reins ever since I was five! I guess you just didn’t know, Master…

It was a temple, but we live on a small island, so the temple looked even smaller than Master’s house. But, isn’t Goddess Inanna supposed to be the super beautiful goddess of love? Maybe that’s why there were so many pretty flowers blooming all around the temple. It was so beautiful that I felt like I was sitting on top of floating cloud of rainbows. I almost didn’t even realize that I was drooling.

Yellow sunlight was pouring into the front yard, and the temple walls, which were painted white with white clay, were wonderfully warm and felt so good when I leaned against them.

I tied Master’s donkey to a tree and sat against the wall as I watched the people who had come to hold rites. I couldn’t help but stare whenever I spotted any handsome misters wearing kaunakes with well-combed wool tufts that swayed as smoothly as water and crimson new hats or any rich madams wearing gorgeous shawls and had flowers and golden bands in their hair.

Oh, and then my eyes suddenly met the old woman’s, who was sitting against the wall with me! I couldn’t help but smile because I felt like I’d done something a bit bad.

“What an adorable child. Are you waiting for someone?”

“My master. Are you waiting for someone too, Grandma?”

“Yes. I have a pretty little niece, and I heard that the person she loves was coming to visit the temple. So I came here to sneak a look at him.”

“Why are you hiding here and trying to sneak a look at him? You can just see him at home with your niece! Oh……are priests not allowed to leave the temple?”

It was only then that I’d finally realized that the old woman was a priestess. She was wearing the gorgeous white spaulders that the priests from this temple were said to wear, a long linen coat with golden embroidery on the sleeves and hem, and a kaunakes skirt with seven layers. The old woman nodded as she listlessly replied,

“That’s right. Priests aren’t allowed to leave the temple.”

It wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t realized that the old woman was a priestess. Master told me that there were only young and beautiful priestesses serving at the temple of Inanna. Part of the rites involved doing something with the young and pretty priestesses, and he also bragged about being able to ‘choose the youngest and prettiest priestesses’ to do it with if you gave a lot of offerings.

So that’s why I’d thought that there were only young and pretty priestesses at the temple, and I didn’t know that there would be older priestesses like this old woman too.

“Have you lived here for a long time, Grandma?”

“Of course. I’ve been living here since before you were born. I was a cute little thing like you once too, you know?”

The old woman let out a long sigh as she patted my back.

“Why do you look so sad, Grandma?”

“Because I’m hurting.”

“Where are you hurting. Would you like me to blow on it for you?”

Bitterly, the old woman replied,

“It’s my heart that’s hurting. I used to be so popular, but now I’m so lonely that I feel like I’m rotting away alive.”

“You don’t have any children?”

The old woman crinkled her nose as she wriggled her wrinkled mouth.

“Who can say? I have no idea where they are or what they’re doing.”

Whoops —I clasped my hands over my mouth. I’d heard before that priestesses had to send their babies away to live somewhere else because they weren’t allowed to raised them in the temple. I quickly lowered my head and apologized.

“I’m sorry for asking you something I shouldn’t have.”

How much must she have missed her babies when she didn’t have a husband and she had to send her babies away to live somewhere else because she wasn’t allowed to raise them here? How hard and lonely must it have been? Even my heart was starting to hurt.

The old woman stroked my hair as I sniffled with tears dangling from my eyes. I undid the pouch at my waist and gave the old woman my entire lunch —a flatbread made from wheat and two figs.

“What a kindhearted child you are. But what will you do? —it doesn’t look like there’s anything else for you to eat.”

“That’s okay. I’ll sneak even yummier food here for you next time, so please smile instead of being sad. I’m sure you’re much prettier when you’re smiling. Not that you aren’t pretty already.”

“I don’t know if I’ll still be here the next time you visit, but thank you for saying that I’m pretty.”

The old woman priestess grinned. Then, she continued,

“Well then, since you told me that I’m pretty and you’ve given me a delicious snack offering, shall I give you a prophecy?”

“A prophecy?”

“Is there anything you’re curious about? Like who you’ll end up marrying in the future? A lot of people want to know who they end up marrying, especially since Goddess Inanna governs over love —would you like me to see that for you? Or, do you have another wish?”

“I have a wish, Grandma,”

I answered without a moment’s hesitation. I continued,

“I want to drink milk with lots of honey in it.”

The old woman doubled over and began cackling, so I guess I’d asked for something too simple. I felt my face grow hot in embarrassment. I quickly began counting on my fingers and increasing the number of things I wanted so my wish would get better.

“I also want to eat white and fluffy cheese, lamb that’s been cooked in a brazier with a ton of salt, pepper, onions, garlic, and nutmeg, roasted partridge, crunchy honey cakes, and lots of dried apricots, raisins, and figs.”

“Hohoho —is there anything else?”

“I want to try wearing what my master wears —that is, the long crimson kaunakes with soft tufts that come all the way down to my ankles—, a yellow linen shawl, a headband with gold embroidery, a belt with a lot of pretty and colorful stones, and I also want to try wearing leather shoes with a lot of strings once too.”

“Hoho. You’ll have to be loved my someone high and mighty if you want your wishes to come true, you know?”

“Huh? But I’m a slave? Not only that, but I’m a slave to a fisherman who lives in the boondocks of Elde Isle.”

“Love is the cruelest and most violent force in the world, my child. No one can resist it once they’ve been swept away. The Great Goddess Inanna humbles arrogant men by granting them an emotion they cannot withstand. Humankind must never become arrogant, you see.”

“Why not? Because it’s unseemly?”

“It’s because humans are born dirty, lowly, and base. Lord Enki, the great Creator, created mankind by taking blood from the leader of the defeated gods who rebelled against the greater gods and mixing that dirty blood into mud.”

I tilted my head to the side. It was so weird. If he was going to make humankind anyway, then he could’ve made us with nice and pretty things and loved us —why did he have to make us with weird stuff and hate us for being dirty and lowly? Was love a punishment from the great gods to keep us humble? I didn’t get it.

“Well then, why don’t we try it and see?”

The old woman priestess sat me down on one of her knees, took out a bundle of dried aromatic herbs, and began scattering them around.

Then, a moment later, the old woman’s eyes rolled up and her arms and legs began shaking. I knew that priests had to smell weird herbs and send their minds to visit the realm of the gods because Master had told me. That was why I gathered my hands and waited patiently for the old woman to finish.

Eventually, her wrinkled mouth began to wriggle, and a strange, hoarse voice began to flow out from her lips.

Thou who art loved by Inanna. The Great Inanna speaks.

Huh? I opened my eyes really wide. Loved by Inanna? Who? Me?

Is the old woman really giving me a prophecy? Was this really an oracle from Goddess Inanna?

Thy possess a fragrance that will allure many men, just like Inanna herself.

Thou who art loved by Inanna. Thy shalt be loved by noble and beautiful beings.

Thou who art loved by Inanna. Accept Inanna’s blessing. Else, thy fragrance shalt become a stench, and thy fate shalt turn astray and thou shalt lose the love of the noble and beautiful beings.

May the two paths before thee never cease. South and north, up and down, heaven and earth, land and sea, love and hatred, noble and humble, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, truth and lies, past and future, life and death.

Choose thy fate at the crossroads between all these things.

……What the heck?

To be honest, I wasn’t very happy. Gloomily, I asked the old woman,

“Can’t I turn down this blessing, Grandma?”

The old woman was still a little dazed as she narrowed her eyes and looked down at me.

“Why?”

I only wanted to love just one person whom I really liked a lot.

It was probably because of my master that I thought this way. Master was the richest man in the village, and he had four slave lovers on top of his wife, the madam, but to be honest, it didn’t really seem like he actually liked any of them.

Whenever the madam fought with her husband, she would bring the slave lovers to her, nitpick them for every little thing, and find any excuse to whip them, slap them across the face, and curse at them. ‘Bitches who seduced married men by going into heat,’ she called them. But it was actually Master who dragged the slaves to his bed against their will. That was why I wasn’t too happy about the ‘fragrance that will allure many men’ part.

“You can always say no and give it back if you don’t want to accept a gift, right?”

“Goodness, child. You can’t just give back something a god has given you simply because you don’t like it,”

the old woman whispered with a strangely fuzzy voice.

I leaned against the wall and blinked. The wall, which had felt warm just earlier, didn’t feel as warm anymore.

“……Why not?”

“That would be the same as disobeying Goddess Inanna and rebelling against her.”

I opened my eyes wide. Disobey and rebelling were huge crimes if you were a slave. Some slaves were even whipped to death for doing that. But I’d never done anything bad to the old woman or to Goddess Inanna. It felt so unfair.

“Why? It’s not like I did anything bad, and it’s not like she was giving me the gift because I did something good either —I’m just saying that I don’t want it?”

The old woman priestess crinkled her nose again when I articulately quipped back, and then she slowly began explaining things to me.

“The great gods don’t judge people for being good or evil. Us mudpeople are no better than insects in their eyes, and they don’t care about us insects doing good or bad things to each other. The only standard by which the great gods judge us is, ‘how obedient are the mudpeople to them?’”

“Oh…….”

A chill ran down my back. The old woman closed her eyes and shook out her body before she continued babbling,

“That’s why turning down a gift from a god is seen as disobedience and rebellion, and why the gods will react by cursing you instead. A blessing from a god and a curse from a god have the same roots, and you cannot turn down a blessing much in the same way that you cannot simply refuse a curse. Do you understand?”

The old woman’s voice was tender and kind as she whispered, but it sounded scarier as I understood what she was saying less and less. Still, I understood that I couldn’t turn down the blessing just because I didn’t want it, and I really didn’t like that. And so, because I’m stubborn, I decided to be brave instead of just being meek and saying that I understood.

“But I can’t help the fact that I don’t like what I don’t like.”

The old woman shook her head and yawned. I yawned twice two because I caught it.

The old woman began dozing off —maybe because the herbs were still affecting her— and her head began to bob as she mumbled,

The Great Inanna speaks.

I see two men who shalt love thee.

And I see two men whom thou shalt love.

I see two men who shalt kill thee.

And I see two men whom thou shalt kill.

……I really should’ve just accepted the first one.

I quickly decided to stop the old woman priestess’ oracle with new words before it got any longer. I preferred loving one person instead of two, and I thought that saving people was better than killing them. That was why I began rocking my body back and forth just like how the old woman was and said,

Brave and courageous Renier speaks.

I see one man whom I love.

And I see one man who loves me.

I see one man whom I save.

And I see one man who saves me.

The old woman priestess’ eyes shot open when she heard my childish prophecy, and she shook her head and clicked her tongue. I could almost hear her saying, ‘how dare you alter the Great Lady Inanna’s oracle, you little wench?’

I was a little angry, and I was also a little scared. But I was a slave, so I didn’t dare get angry. That was why I quickly smiled instead and said,

“I’ll let you know which prophecy came true after I’ve grown up. You have to live a really, really long time, okay, Grandma?”

“Goodness……you cheeky little thing. I am curious, but I don’t know if I’ll really be able to live that long,”

the old woman mumbled again —she still sounded like she was being affected by the herbs— before she began dozing off under the sun. I grinned in embarrassment before I leaned against the wall again and closed my eyes too.

The two of us sat together beneath the sunlight for a very long time.