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painted chest, holding a tumbler of therka.
    With my fresh wind whirling I feel less shut in. I lower myself onto a stool.
    Puru lifts a flap of linen to drink, exposing a fringe of mustache. I imagined him clean shaven, as Arduk and I are.
    â€œGreetings, Puru. I’ve come from the city of Hyte with questions.” I tell him about Senat and his family. “Will my landlord’s wife recover? Will anyone be sacrificed?”
    He’s silent.
    â€œPlease tell me.”
    He shakes his head and his linens rustle. “I . . . will . . . not . . . reveal your fate or the fates of these foreign mortals.”
    â€œI didn’t ask about my fate.” I wait.
    He adds nothing.
    I’d like to shake him. His hut has made my head ache, but I try one more question. “Where does the god Admat live?”
    â€œI . . . have . . . not . . . heard of such a god.”
    Outside Puru’s hut I breathe deeply and wonder howMerem is faring.
    Hannu and Arduk are in Hannu’s workshop. When I come in, they embrace me. Hannu’s hug is so fierce, I feel trapped. Finally she lets me go and returns to her pottery wheel.
    Arduk sits by the long window. He picks up his knife and the block of cedar he was whittling. The shape of a pear is emerging from the wood. “Are you home to stay, Turnip?”
    I shake my head, embarrassed.
    â€œHe is still the pretend mortal,” Hannu says.
    â€œHave you ever met a god named Admat?”
    â€œYou’re the traveler, Turnip.”
    As far as I know, no other Akkan god has sojourned in a foreign land or lived among mortals.
    I tell them about Admat.
    â€œThere are terrible, vengeful gods in the world,” Arduk says. “We’re not like them.”
    I explain Senat’s oath. “Can we prevent a sacrifice?”
    â€œOf a foreign mortal?” Hannu says.
    I’m too angry to mince words. “You don’t care what happens to mortals, not even our own. Arduk doesn’t either.”
    â€œTurnip”—he puts aside his whittling—“we attendtheir festivals for us. We—”
    â€œOnce a year we let them see us and we answer a few prayers.”
    â€œI give them pottery designs.” Hannu holds up a double-lipped ewer. “Look at this one.”
    â€œBut you don’t make any new animals for them, and you’re not interested in them.”
    â€œNot in this one or that one, Turnip.”
    Hannu balls up the clay on her wheel. “Who can be interested in soap bubbles?”
    â€œMortals aren’t soap bubbles. The people of Hyte aren’t. Senat loves his wife. Kezi—”
    â€œThey don’t last,” Arduk says.
    â€œYou become acquainted with one and pop! it’s dead.” Hannu spins her wheel again. “Pottery lasts.”
    But it can’t feel.
    â€œWe should have had children after you,” Hannu says, as she has many times. “You would have had godlings to play with.”
    I agree, although I’ve never told her so. I’m regretting coming here. Kezi’s frightened face, Merem’s palsy, Senat’s desperation are always in my mind.
    On my way to retrieve my donkey and my goats, I pass Arduk’s orchid garden. Ursag, god of wisdom and civilization, tallest of us all, is there, peering down at a scarlet orchid. When I was younger, he was my tutor.
    I ask him about Admat.
    â€œThere’s no mention in my tablets of such a god.”
    â€œCould he be the greatest god? Could he set the fate of men and other gods?”
    â€œIf this Admat were over us, I would know. And fate was written before any gods were born. Puru alone can read ahead.” He touches an orchid petal. “Isn’t it a marvel?”
    â€œVery nice.” I burst out, “A mortal lasts much longer than a flower. Why do we cultivate one and neglect the other?”
    He smiles inscrutably. “Your mati raised Mount Enshi