People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) Read online

  Ham halted and studied the boy. Ramses looked haggard, in agony of soul. Ham patted him on the shoulder. “I forgive you.”

  Ramses, never very emotional, grabbed his hand. Then he let go, as if embarrassed by the display. “If I can ever do something for you…”

  Ham smiled. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  Ramses turned away, while Ham limped home, brooding, wondering how best to thwart the coming war.

  These days, all the youths trained diligently, marching with spear and shield and shouting in mock rage as they thrust into straw dummies. Babel seethed with activity, a whirlwind of motion.

  Then training halted as the barley bent under the weight of its ears. Everyone helped in the harvest. Most people worked in teams of three. The first man reaped with a clay sickle, swinging, cutting dry stalks with a tool fired in a brick-baking kiln. The sickle had almost become vitrified, or turned glassy. Because of its hardness, the clay cut almost as well as a flint sickle. The price for the hardness and thus sharpness, however, was brittleness. Clay sickles often broke. Fortunately, making another cost almost nothing in terms of time and material. The second man of the team followed the first, gathering the cut stalks and binding them into sheaves. The third man piled the sheaves. Later, working in tandem, the three-man team hauled the grain to a threshing floor, spreading the stalks and driving a sledge over it. Under the sledge-board were embedded chips of flint and other sharp stones. These stones cut and separated the grains from the stalks. Barley lifters with flat wooden shovels heaved the product into the air. Wind blew away the lighter chaff and husks, while the heavier grains fell back onto the pile. If there wasn’t any wind, workers with wicker winnowing fans provided the breeze. The result of all the hard labor was golden heaps of barley. Joyfully, workers shoveled the wealth into fat-bellied storage jars. They loaded the jars onto two-wheeled carts and let oxen pull the carts to granary sheds.

  The bountiful harvest weighed heavily in favor of Kush’s decision. He and others claimed it was a message from the angel, incontrovertible evidence that they must indeed fight for freedom.

  After the five days of harvesting and threshing, and Uruk’s empty-handed return from the southern marsh, the training resumed and Fall Festival drew nearer. Finally, the day arrived when the chosen Hunters and the selected citizens of Babel, about two thirds the city levy, assembled, listened to speeches, cheered and then set out north to face the slavers and put to rest this so-called curse of Noah.

  29.

  Ham morosely sat in his workroom. His carving tools and saw lay on the table, as did a half-finished ivory piece. He eyed the many shelves and on them the figurines: Ymir, Rahab, the leviathan, Noah with his staff, a great sloth and mammoth and sabertooth cat. Scribes, priests, warriors and two peasants with a yoked team of oxen, these figurines and more, many more, lined the shelves. Ham stared, with deflated shoulders and with a grim feeling of defeat.

  He sighed and uncorked the clay jug that sat between his legs. The jug was heavy with beer. He sloshed it. What was the use of staying sober? Kush and Nimrod marched with Menes, Ramses and countless others. They marched to shed blood, to wage war, to gain glory. They didn’t put it that way, of course.

  Ham grimaced, touching the tip of the jug to his lips. The strong aroma of beer wafted through his nostrils. He closed his eyes, yearning to drink, to drown his worries and despair in long hours of drunkenness. His proud boasts now sounded hollow. His rage meant nothing after all. He was useless.

  The hinges of his workroom door creaked. He didn’t want to look up. Perhaps if he chugged deeply Rahab would leave him alone. He doubted it, yet…

  Her garments rustled as she moved into the room, her footfalls light. The bench he and now she sat on groaned ever so lightly. He opened his eyes as he set down the jug, looking into the wrinkled face of his wife. What he saw surprised him. It wasn’t reproof, anger or resigned despair. Surrounded by her hood and strands of gray hair, her bird-bright, brown eyes shone. A mischievous smile creased her lips.

  “What is it?” Ham asked.

  “You’re forbidden to leave Babel, isn’t that correct?” she asked.

  He scowled. He didn’t want to talk about it. He had been shamed, demeaned and demoted. Perhaps, genetically, he was the patriarch, in terms of family lines and seniority, the old man of the Tribe of Ham. However, his rude handling these past weeks had left him practically a prisoner, a castoff figure of folly and derision. The impotence of his will had wrung out his self-respect. Other than moments of rage, he was useless.

  “Odin, grandson of Ashkenaz, has been left in charge of the city’s Hunters,” Rahab said.

  Ham shrugged. What did that matter? Ashkenaz was a son of Gomer, the son of Japheth. He recalled the day he’d trekked to their site, the long cabin, and how he had persuaded Ashkenaz to immigrate to Babel. Soon thereafter, several of Ashkenaz’s grandsons had joined the Hunters, Odin being the most prominent among them.

  “Why was Odin left behind?” Rahab asked. “Do you know the reason?”

  Ham shook his head. He wished his mysterious wife, with her strange smile, would depart and leave him in peace. He fondled the jug. He wished to drink, to get drunk, to wallow in his despair and not bother thinking about his empty days.

  “Odin is a Japhethite,” Rahab said.

  “Yes,” Ham said. “But his allegiance is to the Hunters, to Nimrod especially.”

  “Unquestionably true,” Rahab said. “So why was he left here? He is the Spear Slayer after all, and he’s a captain.”

  Ham sighed. Each of the Hunters had earned a cognomen, a nickname that denoted a specialty. Nimrod was the Mighty Hunter. Gilgamesh was the Ghost Stalker. Odin, this grandson of Ashkenaz, was called the Spear Slayer, and he was a captain among the Hunters. Ham scowled, angry that he should think of this, but such a one as Odin might be sorely needed in a battle against the Japhethites and Beor and his Scouts. His wife had a point. Yet what did that matter? He had been demeaned and demoted. He was a figure of derision, a prisoner among his own offspring.

  “Aren’t you curious why Nimrod left the Spear Slayer?” Rahab asked.

  “Some one had to stay,” mumbled Ham.

  “To watch you? Is that what you mean?”

  He shrugged.

  “Are you saying, my husband, that you are such a dangerous possibility, that your fight against Ymir is remembered with such awe, that Nimrod would assign one of his toughest warriors to watch you?”

  Irritated that his own wife should mock him, Ham looked away. He wished she would leave. So he could drink, get drunk and forget about his impotence in the numbness of much beer.

  Rahab said, “Perhaps Nimrod thinks you will pick up an axe, shake it against those who remain, and march out of Babel, riding your chariot ahead of them and warning the others of what occurs.”

  His scowl returned, and he regarded those bird-bright, brown eyes, that mysterious smile.

  “A fast ride to Festival,” Rahab said, “with fresh teams of donkeys. Surely two men in a chariot might dash ahead of the Army of Babel and warn the others.”

  “They might,” Ham said.

  “Perhaps that is why Nimrod kept Odin back, to stop you from doing that.”

  “There are other Hunters here,” Ham said. “Only a handful, that’s true, but enough to stop me.”

  “Together perhaps,” Rahab said, “they might stop you.”

  Ham took his left hand off the jug, clenching it. He was yet strong, at one hundred and thirty years, and agile enough to fight. He had no doubt that in a fair fight with fists, he could defeat many of the Hunters. Most of them, in fact. Odin? Ham pursed his lips. The overweight Spear Slayer was perhaps the third toughest head-to-head fighter among the Hunters. Nimrod, of course, was first, followed by Uruk. Some men said that Gilgamesh would be a match for Uruk. Swiftness versus strength, cunning versus brute force, would be the contest between those two. In a battle, however, when men marched in rank
s and rammed into the enemy, heavy warriors like Uruk seemed superior to swift fighters like Gilgamesh.

  “There is another reason Odin remained,” Rahab said, “a different one than mere fighting skills.”

  “Oh?”

  The mysterious smile twitched. “It has to do with his famous trek,” she said, “when he returned from it, when Odin stopped at Mount Ararat.”

  “What is this reason?” Ham asked.

  “Why do you wish to know?” she asked. “Don’t you merely want to get drunk, to wallow in your sorrow, to forget the humiliations you received?”

  His features hardened.

  “Or have you forgotten that Nimrod walked away from you in the stocks?”

  “I have not forgotten,” Ham said.

  “No?”

  He grasped her wrist. “Do not mock me, wife. It is unbecoming.”

  She nodded after a moment. “I have a plan, husband, if you are daring enough. It is a plan that will wipe away the shame of the stocks.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Ah,” she said. “I think you’re finally ready.”

  30.

  Odin clumped into the workroom. He was fat, with a belly hanging over the silver buckle of his belt, while a thick, red beard hung halfway down his chest. He was vain, they said, proud of his riches. A silver dagger was slung on his belt, while he wore rhinoceros-hide boots. They called him the Spear Slayer.

  His spear, seven feet long and made from ash, had a tapering bronze head some eighteen inches in length. It was a terrible weapon. When cast with force, Odin could pierce a dragon-shield at close quarters or bury its head in a foot of solid palm wood. With it, he had hunted the shaggy sabertooths of the foothills and rogue bull elephants. He held his spear in such high regard that he scorned lesser missile weapons such as bows or slings, and he had named it. As if it were a pet like a dog or a favorite donkey, Odin called his spear, Gungnir.

  The fat youth clumped into the workroom, setting Gungnir against the wall. He scowled at Ham slumped in the corner singing to himself, holding a jug of beer.

  A worried Rahab stepped through behind Odin. “Do you see what I mean?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Odin asked. “Doesn’t he get drunk all the time?”

  “Drunk!” shouted Ham. “I’m not drunk.”

  “Don’t lie to him,” Rahab said.

  “I’m not lying. I’m sober.” Ham raised the jug. “And it’s sober that I say the attack on Festival is a mistake.” He guzzled, smacking his lips and drawing his arm across his mouth. “Come, Hunter, join me.” Ham corked the jug and heaved it at Odin.

  “Would you stay with him?” Rahab pleaded.

  “Me?” Odin asked, as he caught the jug.

  “A mistake,” shouted Ham. “The attack is a grave mistake.”

  “Explain to him why it isn’t a mistake,” Rahab said.

  Odin glanced at her sharply, shrewdly. “I thought that’s what you thought.”

  “I do,” admitted Rahab. “But the way he is now, I’m afraid he’ll harness the chariot and rush to Festival.”

  “No,” Odin said. “I can’t allow that.”

  “So talk to him,” Rahab said.

  Ham, who had risen silently, slapped Odin on the back, making the fat man stumble. “Drink with me, Spear Slayer. Drink to this vast mistake.”

  Odin glowered, but as Rahab raised her eyebrows, pleading, he shrugged. “Better a few drinks than having to lock him in the stocks, I suppose. Because that’s where he’s going if he tries to leave Babel,” Odin said. “Drunk or not, that will be the penalty.”

  “But I’m not drunk.”

  Odin pushed Ham to the workbench. Then he took a healthy slug of beer as Rahab slipped away. His bushy eyebrows rose. “Say. This is good brew.”

  Ham leered knowingly, crashing onto the bench, picking up a second jug. “Drink with me, a prisoner in Babel.”

  Odin sat on a nearby stool, chugging.

  Ham stared at his jug, and in the manner of drunks, he began to speak about past glories, about the boat-ride to Dilmun, the Blessed Land. He told the entire long story, about Anu and the leviathan, what an awful experience that had been. When he finished, he leered at Odin.

  “They say you also went on a journey.”

  “Oh, aye, that I did,” Odin said. A smile might have touched him. The beard made it hard to tell.

  “Did you see any leviathans?” Ham asked.

  “No dragons of any sort.”

  “I thought not.”

  Odin swirled the jug. “I had to listen to you about the leviathan. Now let me tell you what I saw.”

  The Spear Slayer began a discourse on his trek north, he, his older brother and a cousin, another grandson of Ashkenaz. The trek had occurred before Ashkenaz left Gomer Village. The trek had occurred partly because Noah had prompted them to obey the great command of Jehovah to fill the earth. Noah had suggested they scout the far-flung lands. Odin’s brother, Vili, suggested they trek north. So off they went, for weeks climbing mountains, trudging through plains and skirting dark seas. The weeks plunged together and still they trekked, wishing to know what lay beyond the horizon. Odin related that the journey stirred in him a deep desire, a longing to know, to see strange sights, to do something mighty, something daring.

  At last, they came to the Far North, a strange and sinister land. Vast animals lived on this howling plain of snow. Cold mists drifted across the bleak landscape. Wooly mammoths and rhinoceroses forged through the drifts, as did shaggy musk oxen and thunderous herds of reindeer, huge herds, leagues long. It awed them. Around the herds prowled wicked beasts, massive sabertooths, dire wolves and lumbering cave bears. Then they came to the Ice Mountains. Sheer they arose, castles of ice. The mists drifted thicker here and longer into the morning. Above the strange mountains shone a yellow glare: iceblink, they named it. For league upon league, they had tried to go around the Ice Mountains or to find a path into them. No. There hadn’t been a path. The grinding mountains of ice had halted the trek.

  Odin spoke of marvels, of days surrounded by dire wolves, of the thunder of stampeding herds. It had terrified them. Then he and his brother, Vili, and his cousin, Ve, slew a wooly rhinoceros.

  Odin slurred his words as he spoke. By now, he had drunk much beer. He tilted his head back, with his hands sweeping aside his massive, red beard. On his chest, on the costly coat, was the horn of the wooly rhinoceros, held by a chain of gold.

  “It is my good luck amulet.”

  “Ah,” Ham said.

  Odin spoke of the trek home. He blinked repeatedly. His lake blue eyes had become glassy. He spoke of his meeting with Noah and trekking with his brother and cousin onto Mount Ararat, there seeing the Ark, the mighty ship of old, encased deep in ice. It had reminded him of the Ice Mountains.

  On their return to Noah, in his camp on the northern slope of Ararat, had come visitors: Beor and his daughter, Hilda. She had been fifteen at the time. He hadn’t been much older. Beor had delighted in their tales, while he had told them how he had slain a great sloth.

  Odin reeled upon his stool, with an almost empty jug in his hands. “A great warrior, that Beor.” Odin belched. “What I remember better, though, was Hilda. Ah, she was a nice girl.”

  Ham nodded sagely. Rahab had told him that Odin had spoken often in the past about Hilda. Rahab felt it was the real reason why Nimrod had left Odin behind. Ham lifted his jug, as if to match the Spear Slayer in a chugging contest. In reality, he continued to sip.

  “You liked the girl then?” Ham asked.

  Odin blinked, bending nearer Ham. They had been telling stories for several hours, with many empty jugs around them, almost all of them drained by Odin. “Liked her? Of course, I liked her. She was beautiful.”

  “Ah,” Ham said. “It’s too bad then.”

  Odin scowled. And he swayed back suddenly, his head erect. He opened his mouth and emitted a loud belch. He laughed afterward, until his forehead furrowed. “What do you mean
it’s too bad?”

  “That you liked the girl.”

  The furrow deepened. “Why should that be bad?”

  Ham brushed the side of his nose, appearing very knowing.

  “I want no winks and nods, old man. Tell me why that’s bad.”

  “I’m not sure that’s wise,” Ham said.

  Odin swayed onto feet, his lake blue eyes cross and his breathing audible. “I demand to know.”

  “Not in your condition. Wait until morning.”

  For all his drunkenness, Odin lunged smoothly, his pudgy yet strong fingers wrapping around the front of Ham’s tunic. “Speak, old man.”

  Ham stiffened haughtily. “First, you must release me.”

  Odin growled, shaking Ham.

  Ham seemed to relent. “It has to do with war.”

  “You mean the Army of Babel?” slurred Odin.

  “Exactly.”

  “That has nothing to do with the girl!”

  Ham pried the fingers from his tunic. “Sit down. Then I’ll tell you.”

  Odin plopped heavily onto his stool as he glared at Ham.

  “You never lived during Antediluvian times. How could you? But I did,” Ham said, thumping his chest. “I know what war is like. It’s a dark and dirty business, very violent. Worst of all is afterward, how men act after a battle. I speak from experience, mind you. I’ve seen it. Madness comes upon victorious warriors. Victory is intoxicating. To take a woman then, especially from your enemy, ah, many men cannot resist it. They find it the greatest joy of combat.”

  “Do you mean rape?”

  “Yes, rape,” Ham said, “along with looting and pillaging.”

  The scowl became dark and brooding, until Odin shook his head. “Nimrod knows I desire the woman. She is to be mine.”

  Ham chuckled.

  “Why is that funny?” Odin asked.

  “Beor is Nimrod’s foe, his worst enemy. After he kills Beor, how do you think Nimrod will treat the daughter?”

  Odin thumped his chest. “She’s promised to me.”