It was mid-morning when she woke again. Knowing how little rest she had had recently, her father ordered the servants to let her sleep, and left for work without her.

As she opened her eyes, the memory of Isin’s message came flooding back. She sat up abruptly and looked out of the window – the sun was high, and noon must be approaching.

Washing and pulling on a simple tunic, she picked up a pair of sandals and moved stealthily along the hallway, down the spiral staircase and through the front door. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped out into the street – she hadn’t encountered a single servant. No-one would tell tales on her to her father.

She slid her feet into the sandals and set off for the Red Palace. Her feet traversed the road of their own accord, finding the way without the help of her mind – she was so busy mentally rehearsing what she might say to get into the palace that she barely noticed the friendly faces smiling and greeting her along the way, though she grinned and waved back as though her body were being controlled by someone else.

It would be better not to give a definitive reason for needing to see Kisha, she decided. She couldn’t think of anything both plausible and pressing enough to gain her entrance. If she claimed to have a message from their father, they could say that she didn’t need to deliver it in person. Or worse, they might drag her before Samsu to let him decide whether Kisha needed to hear it. If she said their father was gravely ill, it would be discovered as a lie immediately. Adab was no trader whose illness and absence could go unnoticed – he was visible in the community every day. Most of the other excuses she could think of, she decided they would just scoff in her face and turn her away.

Her eyes snapped back into focus as the dazzling mountain of the palace came into view, the glazed tiles reflecting the midday sun and making the whole building seem aflame. The complex was enclosed by walls as high as trees, with just two gates on the perimeter.

The main gate set into the north wall, wide enough for four horses to pass abreast, was for officials, nobles and royalty – certainly not the sister of the second wife.  Eliana veered off to the left, making for the eastern gate – a smaller opening to allow suppliers and servants to come and go without making the palace look unsightly.

Two guards flanked the gate, standing to attention despite Utu’s smothering high noon heat. She didn’t recognise either of them from Kisha’s wedding. Gripping spears in one hand, leather shields in the other, they stared into the distance.

Eliana’s heart sank – hope of success ebbing away. Summoning all her courage, she approached the smaller of the two. He looked down his wide nose at her, a sneer playing about the corners of his lips.

‘We don’t give to beggars here – get lost, or you’ll find yourself at work in the palace kitchens.’

She drew herself up to her full height so that her eyes were level with his, and Wide-Nose had to tilt his head back to keep looking down at her. ‘I am no beggar. I am Eliana, younger daughter of Adab, Ensi of Nippur, and sister to your Lugal’s wife.’

The second guard gave an unpleasant snort of laughter, like an impatient horse. ‘You mean the concubine.’

Refusing to rise to his bait, she ignored the slight. ‘I must see my sister – it’s urgent.’

Wide-Nose gave her a hard prod in the shoulder with his index finger, moving her back a step. ‘Push off. The concubine is not receiving visitors.’

‘Why not?’ she demanded.

‘We don’t have to explain our master’s orders to little girls,’ said Horse-Snort.

‘But, it’s a matter of life and death!’ tried Eliana in desperation.

‘It will be, if you don’t disappear.’ Wide-Nose took a menacing step towards her.

She turned and fled, hoots of laughter following at her heels.

There was no way forward with those two – she would have to try something else. She fumed as she made her way home: ‘little girl’, ‘the concubine’, ‘beggar’... the insults echoed in her ears. A danger bell clamoured alongside them – Kisha would not send an urgent secret message one day, then refuse visitors the next. Something was truly wrong.

She would not give up so easily. She would have fought the guards if she’d thought there was any chance of success.

Kisha’s apartments were on the western side of the complex. When they had sat in the palace garden and talked of the weather, she had mentioned how much sunlight they got in the evenings. Eliana resolved to go back after dark, hidden under Suen’s cloak of night, and scale the west wall. She could find Kisha’s apartments from there.

The afternoon passed at an agonising crawl as she tried to find ways to keep herself busy and her mind off the challenges the night would bring. When she thought about it too hard, her breath quickened, her palms slickened and it felt like a wild animal was trying to gnaw its way out of her stomach. It was not the thought of what she must do, but the consequences of failure that made her fret so.

It was servants’ work, but she went down to the garden to tend the plants. It soothed her, gave her something to concentrate on. She had never been above getting her hands dirty – she couldn’t bear the simpering girls afraid to get mud on their sandals or earth under their nails.

When she could no longer clearly see her hand in front of her face, she returned to the house. Her father was still out – he often worked late into the night.

‘Would you like dinner, my lady?’ asked the nervous boy who had served the Babylonians at the wedding. He was carefully not looking at her dirt-smeared tunic and scuffed sandals.

‘No, thank you. I’m so tired... I shall just go to bed.’ Her stomach was too unsettled with nerves to contemplate food.

She went up to her room and pulled out her darkest tunic, black silk, and a hooded cloak of black wool along with a pair of soft-soled slippers of kidskin to muffle her footsteps. Anyone catching a glimpse of her in the dark would think they saw a shadow or a gidim, a restless shade of the underworld.

Setting the clothes aside, she went to kneel at her shrine to Enlil in the corner of her room, praying him to implore his son Suen to guide her in the dark, and the mother-goddess to reunite her with her sister, and the healer god Enki to see that her sister was safe and unharmed.

By the time she had finished her prayers, Suen was high in the sky, the city blanketed in darkness. She pulled on her shadow clothes and slipped out of the house. The moonlight gave the road a waxen look. She set off at a jog, heart pounding before she took a single step.

The Red Palace rose from the flat plains like Ereshkigal, the castle of the underworld, a mass of black against the sky. Keeping well back from the front of the palace and its north gate, she circled to the west and headed for a grove of trees growing near the walls.

She picked her way through the trees and pressed into the shadow of the wall that loomed above her.

Lithe as a cat, she scaled the nearest tree. Edging out on a branch, she judged the distance and, putting her faith in Enlil, flung herself towards the wall.

She hung in the air for an agonising moment.

With a crushing blow to the ribs, her midriff made contact with the top of the wall, knocking the breath out of her. She clung on for a few long seconds, steadying her breathing, before pulling herself up and dropping lightly down on the other side.

She crouched, getting her bearings, listening for any sign that she might have been heard.

There was no sign of life anywhere. She stood and began to run, avoiding the path that would crunch underfoot. She leapt and wove around obstacles towards the dark mass of the palace, guided by the light of the moon.

But the gods are cruel, and mortals merely their playthings, created to serve them. Suen dipped behind a cloud, hiding his face and plunging the garden into darkness.

Eliana missed her footing and fell with a shriek and a resounding splash into an ornamental pond.

She panicked and floundered, dragged down by the weight of her saturated woollen cloak. Her arms flailed, struggling for purchase on the soft edges.

Somebody seized the cloak and dragged her from the water. Not stopping to see who was behind her, with a wriggle and a jolt she twisted free of the fabric, sitting down hard on the ground, scrambled to her feet – though where she could run to in the dark enclosure, she had no idea. The only thought in her mind was to escape, get away, run. Anywhere.

Before she could even right herself, two strong hands grasped her under the arms and hauled her into the air. Suspended between two palace guards, they marched her towards the building, one clutching her sodden cloak in his other hand.

A blind panic overtook her as she realised where they were going. Her wet hair covered her face like a cushion, smothering her. Her heart raced like a pursued gazelle as she screamed over and over again, not knowing where help might come from in this hostile place.

She twisted and kicked and fought, but the two held her between them as easily as a basket of barley. They carried her into the palace, but she had no time to notice the opulence of her surroundings. There was nothing but the two iron grips around her arms that she must shed.

They burst into a great chamber, lavishly decorated with glazed tiles, gilding, fashionable cedar furniture from Lebanon... all unnoticed by the girl who was no longer screaming, but putting every ounce of her energy into fighting. Through her sodden, matted hair, she saw an indistinct figure sat at a desk, working by the light of half a dozen blazing torches.

The soldiers threw her into a heap on the floor before the desk, where she lay trembling with cold and dread.

Samsu didn’t glance at her, but looked up at his guards from the tablet he was reading with a mild expression.

‘An intruder, sir. She broke in. We fished her from one of the ponds near the west wall.’

‘I see. And just who would be stupid enough to break into my palace and expect to leave alive?’

Eliana still lay on the floor, curled up, wet and shivering. Her stomach had turned to water – she thought she might vomit.

‘Well, girl? Who are you?’

She pulled herself to shaking knees and pushed back the mass of dripping hair to show her face.

He raised an eyebrow.

‘Eliana, what a pleasant surprise!’ he gestured to his guards to leave. ‘I thought you might try something to get a message to your sister, but it never occurred to me that you’d be this foolhardy. I thought you were the clever one.’

She lifted her gaze to look him full in the eyes.

She barely had time to draw breath before a vicious strike across the face sent her sprawling, smashing her head against the tiles and momentarily blacking out her vision.

When her eyes focused again, Samsu was upon her. He coiled a hand into her hair and pulled her up until her face was level with his. She cried out in pain and fear.

His breath reeked of garlic and sour wine. ‘Who do you think you are, lowly little girl, to look me in the eyes like an equal?’ Those harsh black eyed travelled over her body, from terror-filled eyes now firmly fixed on the floor and the bruise blossoming on her cheek where his rings had bitten her tender flesh, down to where the wet silk clung to every contour of her body.

His arousal plain, he dropped her to the floor. He growled, ‘you think you are my equal, child? Bow!’

She rolled to her knees and touched her forehead to the floor.

‘Good,’ he said, ‘now you will stay like that until invited to rise.’

He moved behind her and grabbed the hem of her tunic, ripping it with his bare hands to expose her backside and female parts. She whimpered, trying to control herself. Her heart beat so fast she thought she might faint.

She wished she would faint.

She tried to pull her knees in closer to her chest to better cover herself. Samsu delivered a swift, stinging crack across her buttocks.

‘Do – not – move,’ he snarled, his general’s voice echoing from every tile. ‘Your father has spoilt you – let you run wild. But at my hands,’ he knelt behind her, pulling her knees out and apart in one swift motion, ‘you will learn a woman’s place.’

Completely prone, she held back a sob and balled her fists, tensing every muscle as her heart fluttered wildly inside her and her blood raced.

He knelt behind her and, using a moistened fingertip, traced the circle of her entrance before gently pushing it inside.

She gasped, shuddering in a confused medley of revulsion and arousal.

‘Yes, you are ready to learn.’ He stood, pulling the ruined silk across her bare backside. ‘My guards will take you back to your father’s house.’

Her hopes soared.

‘You will remain there under guard during the day tomorrow, and be brought to me in the evening for your first lesson in obedience.’

Despair crushed every fibre of her being, and a sob forced its way up her throat, all her relief of a moment ago snatched cruelly away. She had thought for a moment that she might escape with her honour, if not her dignity.

He began to walk away, ‘be sure to bathe tomorrow. I shall not tolerate you smelling of pond water. And do not think of trying to escape. These are experienced men of war – they will not hesitate to deal with a wilful girl.’

The door crashed closed behind him, the dull sound reverberating around the hall like a nail being hammered into a coffin. She collapsed onto her side as panic took her again – struggling to fill her lungs, disgusted with herself for showing weakness.

A pair of arms scooped her roughly from the floor. She knew no more until they deposited her over the threshold of her father’s house and stood to bar her exit.