Ishtah: The Prostitute's Daughter

By Ella Hansing

“The ceremony of the god Ashur is about to begin. Outside the city begins to celebrate, but the door of our house remains tightly shut. Our food has begun to grow scarce, yet my mother has made no motion to work. She hasn’t called me to braid her long tangled hair, to trace her eyes in black, or paint her lips red. Closing my eyes I try and find what might save us, yet the silence yields my young mind nothing. There would be no point in praying to the gods. I couldn’t imagine them listening to either of us now, and doubted they ever had.”

Daughter of the most illustrious prostitute in all Arrapha, young Ishtah must find a way to endure her mother’s fame. With the ceremony of the god Ashur beginning in a few short hours, will she risk the unknown in pursuit of her own happiness, or succumb once more to acceptance of a life lived in shadows and eternal shame? Newly released, ISHTAH – THE PROSTITUTE’S DAUGHTER builds suspense brick by brick while submerging readers in the beauty and dread of a forgotten empire.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Ella Hansing
• Release date: Sep 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310045981

Ella Hansing

Ella Hansing is a young reader/writer based in Austin Texas. Before graduating home-school, and long before Kindle, she wrote and published a novel with an upstart E-book company with a two-year contract, also submitting an essay “among the top 3% of 5,000 submissions” published by Elder & Leemaur Publishers in 2007. Since then Ella has received a creative writing degree and recently released her first literary fiction novel, ISHTAH - THE PROSTITUTE'S DAUGHTER. She eagerly anticipates more writing projects in her future and continues to collect ideas from various life inspirations.

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ISHTAH

THE PROSTITUTE’S

DAUGHTER

Ella Hansing

Copyright © 2015 Ella Hansing

All rights reserved ®

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior permission from the author, except for brief quotations in reviews.

All characters included in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-300-58414-8

Smashwords Edition, License Note

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an addition copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1, Most Mothers

Chapter 2, Constant Companion

Chapter 3, Black Lips and Gnarled Teeth

Chapter 4, Baila’s Daughter

Chapter 5, Mystery of the Veil

Chapter 6, Visitors

Chapter 7, Two Necklaces

About the Author

636 B.C.

1. Most Mothers

Gradually my sandals began to slide in the mud, my nose cringing at the odor rising from the stagnant water below. A hot breeze from the east swept gently into me, catching loose strands of hair and drawing them across my face. Blinking, I tucked them safely behind my ears, allowing my shoulders to drop and my lungs to exhale.

There were other pits such as this, some ranging as wide as thirty meters in diameter. Meant to hold the foundations of a larger wall, they had been dug long ago, when the city had anticipated expansion. Then the plague struck. As the population declined construction ceased, and all that remained were giant holes in the ground, left unfilled by the workmen.

Sensing the dryness of my throat I forced myself to swallow, realizing I had been outdoors too long again. It was that time of day best spent hiding under cover, in the shade – those useless hours each summer when no man or beast stirred, as the heat rendered any attempts at work futile. I knew I should be inside, like the others my age – at a loom, bent over an oven, or else occupied with some other normal house busywork. Instead I stood lethargic, transfixed and alone, exposed to the harsh elements – eyes hovering just above the murky surface, unable to turn away.

It was odd to see such a sizable pool of water, considering the scorched terrain and unending drought the gods plagued us with. Over time this was the only cavity that had filled with rain, or perhaps drainage from the city, never drying out entirely. Seeming misplaced, it had always beguiled me, regularly drawing me out from the city to stand or sit at its edge. From certain angles it almost looked like a large eye staring up from the sunbaked earth, undaunted by the expanse of the sky.

When we were younger, the other children and I would stand on top of the city wall above and drop stones into it. The water was too murky for us to see the bottom of the pool, and in our minds we conjured up the notion that its depths knew no bounds. Perhaps an evil god lived beneath the rippling surface? We were afraid to go too close, telling one another that if anyone were to touch the water they would be dragged down into a fate of nothingness – ceasing to exist. I moistened my cracked lips with my tongue, eyes narrowing as I stared. Eventually, our imaginations would prove not so far-fetched.

Four summers ago the herdsman Batheel’s finest cow wandered away from the herd traveling up the road leading to the city gates, finding the pool and wading into it to escape the sweltering heat. The animal never reemerged from its bath, and nor did its carcass rise to the surface, though a group of herdsmen threw hooked ropes into the pool time and time again in search of it.

Fanning the water gnats away from my face I shifted weight, lips sealing tight as I gazed. Perhaps the childish notions had some truth to them – perhaps if I fell in I would vanish. Perhaps whatever god or spirit lurked somewhere just beneath the surface would carry me deep under, far away and forever – out of cruelty or pity I couldn’t decide.

Nowadays there were very few who ventured out to the pool beside myself. Anywhere outside the city was considered too barren, hot and exposed for anyone to tolerate other than herdsmen or field workers – as was most of Assyria. Yet to me it was a place of refuge, despite the wind, heat, and odor of the water – wide enough so that I could breathe and quiet enough so that I could rest. A sense of finality called to me from somewhere beneath the surface of the pool, sparkling like a gem – something I longed for. If only I were brave enough to reach in, I could clutch it.

A grotesque image of the cow, lost somewhere in the pool, danced across my mind, breaking me abruptly from my trance. I caught myself just before my sandals, still sliding in the mud, touched the water – walking back up the bank a ways to look from a distance. The gem I so often thought I saw turned once more into the blazing reflection of the sun, now directly overhead. Heat engulfed my body head to toe in a suffocating wave.

Ishtah, called a voice from above.

Startled, I glanced back behind me at the city wall, eyes traveling arduously upward. It towered unsurmountable before me, tall and unfriendly – with rough stones protruding sloppily from the base to fend off foreign intruders. Adjusting my gaze in the sunlight, I soon spied the hooded figure of a woman looking down at me dizzily from the top of the wall. Without checking twice I knew it was Hesba, her face moist from exertion and eyes soft with familiar concern.

Your mother wants you, she called down, quieter when adding, She wants you to braid her hair.

Though she turned away too abruptly for me to catch her expression, it was easy to detect the note of uneasiness in her voice. Disheartened, my gaze dropped quickly to the ground. I preferred her not to find me alone, knowing it would only increase her concern for me. Grinding my teeth, I shook my head faintly – as if to rally my own spirits.

It would take me a long time to hike all the way back to the eastern gate from the pool of water. There were only four entrances to Arrapha, with all manner of uneven terrain stretching between them for miles along the crooked city walls, which made traveling slow and even dangerous for someone inexperienced. It never failed to surprise me how Hesba always managed to find me – despite how easy it was to get lost, both inside the city and out. She had always seemed to know where I was – ever since I was a little girl. Back then I used to think she had spiritual powers – like the soothsayers, possessing the ability to visit the future and past. How else had she been able to find me stuck behind our district well as a child when my own mother hadn’t even noticed my absence? As I grew older, though, I realized she was simply intuitive, as most women became after giving birth to their children – though not all. Also, I at last realized she could see nearly everything from the window on the second floor of her house near the east gate, which I came and went from most often. She could easily spot me, slipping through the street traffic below headed to my familiar spot, as she sat weaving or embroidering inside.

Hesba was like a mother to me, gray haired and stooped, with knowing eyes that easily read my simple, closed off expressions. I didn’t ask this of her. She gave her love freely, though she mothered a daughter and a son of her own already and owed my natural mother nothing.

Reaching behind my shoulders I pulled my scarf up over my head to protect my scalp from the sun – and my face from the prying gazes of the watchmen at the gate, who liked to stare and make calls at anyone passing in a skirt. The further I walked from the pool the dryer the ground became, immense cracks running in zigzags beneath my steps. My toenails were split and rough from all the times I had stubbed them on uneven terrain.

Glancing back I saw Hesba had descended from the wall on the other side. It undoubtedly had interrupted her day to come and find me, since it was now past noon, when all the women should be preparing an evening meal for their families. I assumed my mother had called out to her from our window as she passed in the street and sent her to find me – or else she had seen me leaving a long while ago herself and set out on her own. Again forcing myself to swallow, I could feel my jaw tighten. Hurrying my pace, I sunk my nails into my palms, reminding myself that they would know at the gates if I’d been crying; my face was not pretty when I cried, like my mother’s, which even when sad fetched adoration from onlookers. Knowing I would appear swollen and red, I bit my tongue to refrain. Pain always distracted me from my sadness. It was my common practice to bite my tongue, sometimes until it bled, or burrow my fingernails into varying limbs to deter myself if need be.

In reaching the eastern gate, I was relieved to note the emptiness of the road. It was to my advantage that there was seldom any traffic during the hottest part of the day – when the herdsmen took their flocks out to hide in the shade of rockier terrain, and all the merchants drove their carts away to rest. The last to leave were always the housewives – collecting their food and wares to retreat indoors and tend their houses before their field-laboring husbands would return. Only the watchmen were left behind, leaning against the stone walls, withdrawn in the shaded part of the entryway at either side of the gate, watching in only partial interest as I made my way swiftly into the city. If I passed in the morning, when they were more wakeful, often they would call out to me or click their tongues, as if luring a small dog. I wasn’t afraid of them, though. They knew who I was well enough and wouldn’t bother or approach me – at least not during the bright hours of day.

Sometimes I entertained the illusion that I was a stranger – that I had no family therein Arrapha or business with anyone in the city. I was a nameless traveler passing through. Imagining this often comforted me when traveling through busy city crossings, or wide streets. If this failed, I would then try to convince myself I wasn’t nearly as noticeable as I felt. I reached inside my head covering to smooth back my dark hair. Already I felt my skin begin to itch.

Beyond the gates, most of the city pathways soon became narrow and crooked – some laid with stone, though most plain dirt – worn and trodden by countless feet and hooves. With all the house windows shuttered to block out heat, the inner streets easily became like a labyrinth. The district I lived in was perhaps the most crowded and stifling of all. We were as far from the central temple, where the wealthier resided, as you could get without setting up camp outside city walls. Buildings were more spread out in the higher districts, majestic and towering – up to three stories even. There were trees and running fountains, even in the drought. There were no plants in our district – only stone and mortar and powdery brown dirt that stained the hems of my skirts – which never fit properly since they were my mother’s old ones, adjusted only to fit my thin waist but not my height.

Instinctively my hand stretched out as I passed Hesba’s house, my fingers gliding faintly along the smooth western wall, eyes surveying the servants’ entry down a side alley – wishful. It was the modest, unassuming door I had always used when visiting the family. It had been a while since I’d last crossed over that threshold. I wanted to feel the life within those walls, seep up the aura of that inner space. Just from touching it I could picture the calm inside the home – envision Hesba, setting out floor mats, pulling the bread from over the fire, instructing the servants to take their break, see Phaena finish at her loom before taking her place around the dinner spread. Even from outside, the peace presiding over the house steadied the erratic flutter of my heart.

Onward my feet dragged me, my fingers having reached the end of the wall – onward toward the narrowing of the streets and steady decent of the houses, growing closer and closer together until they looked like mere heaps of stone, with random holes dug out for windows. Our house stood at a fork in the road – convenient, so that my mother could position herself in the shade of the doorway, while still seeing down multiple avenues – her stares having a lengthy reach. Slowly my hand set itself on the latch, my arm pushing the wooden door forward, lungs pausing a moment before inhaling the expensive aroma within of spices and myrrh. The scent of perfume hung heavily in the air, causing my toes to curl. There was surely no home on our street that smelled such as this. Moving into the dim-lit space, I weaved my way cautiously to my mother’s cushioned floor mat in the corner of our front room. Eyes tracing reluctantly up her pale, uncovered ankles to her round thighs, I skipping the tangled assortment of scarves she adorned her body with, rising above her towering neck, her angled chin and opening lips, to meet her dark eyes fully.

Ishtah – my only daughter, my only treasure, she cooed, extending one of her arms in greeting.

Though it was strange for her to welcome me thus, I took her hand lightly in mine – soon noticing her fingernails, which already painted had been meticulously set with tiny sand crystals from the desert. I quickly realized she had worked all day on them and perhaps sought a compliment. My own hand, in contrast to hers, was much darker – tanned by countless hours in the sun – almost the color of the dirt in the streets outside, which I’d been assured men found unattractive. I dropped her hand and went back to the open door, standing in it for a moment at seeing the sun begin to set. Across the street I could see into another home where a meal was being placed. I closed our door and barred it, turning to face my mother.

Your hands are so lovely, I breathed out, Do you want your face to go unnoticed?

Satisfied, she pretended not to hear.

Where have you been today? she began, her voice becoming small – like a child’s. I can’t braid my own hair, you know this, and we neither of us have eaten. Do you expect me to be festive and welcoming to my guest on an empty stomach? Now that you’re here come and begin my braids. When you’ve finished you can stack up the oven. We’ll warm some bread and set the wine here on the mats – I’ve already laid them out, since you’ve been out hiding again.

Removing my sandals I turned slowly to face her. I had been waiting for her to speak of bread – waiting to give her a look I’d been planning all day.

We’ve only one loaf left, I stated hollowly, the muscles in my face holding perfectly still.

Having risen while she spoke, she approached me swiftly – taking my face in both her hands and drawing it close to hers.

I did not try to hide my discomfort. There had never been any point in disguise with her; she couldn’t tell when I considered something unpleasant, and seldom caught my derisiveness either.

Ishtah, she said lowly, Feed it to me tonight. I must have strength for both of us. Our guest will have the wine and not miss it, and you, my daughter, shall have your fill tomorrow when he has gone – as we both shall for weeks and weeks after.

Confident in her own words, she smiled and looked away, releasing my face.

Sensing it hopeless, I forced myself to stop searching her eyes – closing my own. My voice seemed to drown within my throat, the sparks igniting in my soul sputtering helplessly out in the density of perfume lingering between us in the air. Taking a seat behind her on her mat, my hands reached blindly to take up her long, tangled hair.

Braiding her thick tresses was a task similar to the production of a delicate tapestry. Smooth, long, and as black as the temple steps, her hair was the utmost jewel in a range of physical trappings she possessed. When let loose it fell almost to her thighs; she could draw it in folds across part of her face like a veil or tie it on top of her head like a towering crown. After it was braided or twisted there were an assortment of items to be woven in – ribbons, colored thread, small charms carved from wood or perhaps a piece of jewelry gifted her from a lover. Then there were the oils to make the hair shine and glint in the firelight. She could seldom afford to visit the bathhouses, but perfume kept her hair smelling renewed nightly – the most costly investment we made. I thought her hair most beautiful when left plain, but she was least happy in this state. Indecisive over which design to begin, I pulled it into a bunch at the back of her neck and went to prepare the bread before beginning.

In annoyance I found the oven had run cold since the morning, when I’d prepared our breakfast. She hadn’t bothered to feed it through the day. I surmised none of the chores had been finished either, let alone even begun. It took me a while to clean out the ashes, to strike up a flame and slowly feed it the remainder of dried refuse I had stowed behind our house. By the time I finished, my stomach was growling audibly. Knowing the order of events I must follow well, I ignored it. At any rate, I was accustomed to immense hunger followed by eventual feasting, and later again hunger. My body knew no degree of consistency. Ours was a life of overindulgence, followed often by sudden scarcity.

The bread had finished

Reviews for Ishtah

[kerstie sims · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Slow and plodding, one day pretty much the same as another. The other thing is that, in transcribing this particular book, grammar and spelling errors were irritatingly often.